do. now one thing that is notable is that the white house so far has declined to say whether troops, those so-called peacekeeping troops heading into the donbas region, whether that would constitute and tee fine a further invasion into ukraine. that language is what is believed to trigger those larger sanctions from going into effect. so far the white house has not said what is happening right now on the ground, if that does constitute a further invasion. we ll wait to see if we get a further update as measures are expected to be implemented at some point later today. in this situation words do matter. sam kiley and what s your read on this? any reaction from ukrainians? reporter: the ukrainians have stuck to their line as you say in their intro.
nato officials, u.s. officials and other allies that would only occur if vladimir putin invaded. the question is what does this new recognition and the potential for the so-called peacekeeping troops, would that be enough of an invasion for nato to activate the force. so far it does not seem that s the case. there are more than 8,000 u.s. troops in the united states that are on this heightened state of readiness but if the response force is activated they could be sent forward this is more of the shoring up and bolstering these nato ally defenses, reinforcing them as this threat from russia continues. joining us now, richard, what is it like there right now given what we ve seen overnight? has anything really changed? reporter: ukrainians have
again, it should be notice that the separatists do not control the entirety of those to regions. but putin is now unilaterally said that it all belongs to them anyway. in an hour-long speech putin said that ukraine a former member of the soviet union was creating by russia, he essentially delight the notion of russia as he accused ukraine without any evidence of carrying out a genocide against russian people. he said that ukraine poses a threat to not just the russians living in ukraine to all russians. and he said because of that threat he had no other choice today but to recognize those two separatist-controlled regions as independent. to try and protect russians. immediately after his speech biden signed a series of orders and decrees that allowed him to set a so-called peacekeeping troops into eastern ukraine. again for the sake of protecting the russian people. now ukraine the general consensus after putin s announcement today is that he s not laying out a game plan for
because there are developments all the time as we have just been saying and we have got some pictures to bring you, actually. these are from the outskirts of donetsk, the capital one of these two breakaway regions in eastern ukraine that at this as a few hours after the recognition by president putin of their status as independent states. you can see these military vehicles coming through. no marks on them also so we don t have categoric verification as to who is are. but as i said, just coming a short while after mr putin s announcement that he would be sending peacekeeping troops. in the last couple of minutes, russia s ambassador to the un has also said to un security session which is under way now that a new bloodbath in donbas is something we do not intend to do. so we will keep a very close eye on that. it is all, of course, having
the decision taken by president putin in the course the day to recognise two breakaway regions in eastern ukraine. and to commercially put it, sending peacekeeping troops to those regions. there has been general widespread condemnation certainly from western countries with regard to that. the us ambassador to the un has said that mr putin has torn up the minsk agreement, torn it to shreds, in his words. i d added that the us does not believe he will stop at that. so the threat of sanctions has been raised for some time. there are sanctions to be taken certainly by the uk and probably by the us as well with regard to those particular regions. but no further sanctions unless, and until, there is any invasion of the rest of ukraine. that session carries on a wheel give across it for you and you can