his spokesperson said he was notified about it briefly by putin. now we just heard the president live at this highway transportation event. what do you think happens moving forward, tyler, if these americans onboard right now we have word that 23 americans were onboard. what does that do to escalate the situation? i think a great example is how the department of the state department handled their press conference. they went on with their daily briefing minutes before they ever even acknowledged the fact that they were going to make statements on this attack. i think that that is what we ve seen from the obama administration at large is they really don t want to get their hands dirty in this. they really don t want to help. whether or not they want to help really has brought this to a point where civilians are dying. this is a world international event today unfolding. i think a lot of americans at home watching right now are
we see unfold here. the white house has been stressing the last couple hours that at the end of this phone call between the two presidents, vladimir putin was getting some sort of air traffic reports and informed the president of the united states that there had been some sort of a crash. the white house emphasizing it was a brief mention. you have to wonder if that s because vladimir putin knew more and didn t tell president obama more or was he in the dark and learning like the rest of us because these separatists did something on their own without vladimir putin knowing it. we ll find that in the hours ahead. this is a very, very interesting development. ed henry at the white house. stay with us, please. we just got two bits of information i want to share with you from a wire. the head of the regional state administration. that s the guy who made himself in charge of this region which has proclaimed itself to a broken way not done so under anything resembling international law. th
putin. yesterday the president announced new sanctions directed at russia because of the deterioration of the situation in ukraine. significant these new u.s. sanctions didn t just target banking and energy sectors but went after specific firms, defense firms and the u.s. government has been concerned, thissed ed administration about flow of weapons and missiles from russia into these separatists hands. in the last few moments, the white house put out an official statement about that phone call with vladimir putin and they say that president obama, called on president putin to take concrete steps to deescalate the situation including depress separatists to agree to a cease-fire, support a road map for negotiations, halt the flow of fighters and weapons into ukraine, obtain the release of hostages and a whole list of things but specifically right there halt the flow of fighters and weapons into ukraine which could be significant given what