road and go around and proceed forward and they are mired in ugly mud up there, and so they are pretty much road bound and so this is i think a big problem for the force right now. imagine what a capable air force could do to that target on that road. john: it would make the infamous highway of death in southern iraq look like child s play but of course that s something we can t do. if nato airplanes came in, that could initiate world war iii. another point here, we have the convoy down the western side of kyiv stuck there, and also detection of new troop movement swinging to the east of kyiv as forces are coming in this way as well. kharkiv down here, the forces are sweeping across the country. due believe that s some sort of movement to join forces and try to surround kyiv, or would that be a force that might move further westward?
[inaudible] the forces surrounding kyiv came from and now with belarus actively entering the war, it seems unrealistic that it s going to change diplomatically. the fact that the russian forces at this stage seem to have encircled many of the major ukrainian cities and bringing in heavy assault equipment, heavy artillery, i think we will be entering a very violent and a much higher level of casualty when this turns into a siege warfare on these major cities. you have to imagine having increasingly agitated russian president now. his economy now seeing the effects of the sanctions, the russian people protesting by the thousands, being arrested by the thousands and not really seeming to care. could we enter into, you re saying it could be much worse in the coming days. what is the possibility of something even more horrific here like the possibility of
decapitate the political structures here, replace them with russian puppets, possibly jail or even kill members of the opposition likely to run an insurgency campaign. we are not even more than about 15 hours into the beginnings of this russian campaign. we have already got reports of land troops crossing in just to my north here, north of kyiv, we don t know whether as clarissa was rightly pointing out whether the idea would be to surround kyiv, a population, 75% russian speaking, fiercely, though, ukrainian in soul. that has changed, i think, over the last eight years since russia s first incursion into the country. and the 14 or 15,000 people who were killed during that process, the local authorities here reporting some 40 military dead, they don t know how many civilian, they re saying upwards of ten, but, of course, that was several hours ago now. and sadly those numbers both the military dead and civilians also
advances. leaving citizens with two choices either going to fight or flee. many, about 20,000 outside foreign fighters already poured in to fight for the ukrainians. take a look where we stand right now. obviously the red area is occupied by the russians right now. take a look where they are making gains and where they re struggling? right here. and struggling right here. what they are doing is they have great forces as they shell kharkiv they are not able to move in they need forces here. they are chelsea leaving early. envelopes they go and try to disorm this area, they re leaving early to surround kyiv. meanwhile they are getting word that the meigs might be coming. in trying to blow up as many airport as possible. over here they just blew it up. it seems to make no sense and leaves scenes to be on its owns a the northern campaign seems to be struggling. keep your mind though on the south as we look ahead in the north as we mentioned here, this
complicated. you bring up why it s so critical watching these next 24 - 48 hours as that three and a half mile column makes its way because the psychology really changes if the city is finally helped by russian troops. that s exactly right. i can take you quickly back to that close-up of kyiv. you can see recent fighting going on in the outside but ultimately if that column gets into kyiv in the area where the parliament, the presidential palace it s all a very dense area, that column will be shear forces to take it over. we had thought or pentagon officials thought that he would try to prepare the battle space by going much heavier. so far he hasn t. you been waiting for the push to come. it looks like, depending on where that column is in the area come about push is eminent. it s just a matter of time. that is going to become a very difficult, bloodied and violent. for the people in kyiv even