military is willing to escalate this war to parts of the country that had previously gone relatively unscathed. when i was in lviv last week, earlier this week, i believe, you know, there were occasional air raid sirens, but things still felt sort of out of reach. and i think what russia is indicating is that that is no longer the case. we have seen strikes in other cities that had been previously untouched before this as well. so that s how i see these strikes. but obviously it is a concern for nato given the proximity. john, let me play for you a clip of democratic congressman jim himes. he, of course, sits on the house intelligence committee. he appeared on msnbc earlier where he was asked about putin s threat that any military assistance to ukraine will be seen as an act of war. we know they are supplying ukraine with weapons.
and i think we absolutely should be. listen, i m sure vladimir putin would consider that to be an escalation. we considered everything to be an escalation, including providing humanitarian aid to mothers and children and people with cancer who are on the ground in ukraine, which is just appalling. everything is an escalation to putin. and, so, the fact that we are or might be providing intel i don t think should be i don t think we should in any way be deterred by concerns about whether putin will see that as some sort of escalation. we need to provide everything we can to the ukraine government and the ukraine people. all right. congresswoman, thank you so much. it is great to see you again. thank you for coming on. thank you. any time. coming up, could be staging an attack on the chernoybl new
watch. why do we care what vladimir putin s definition of an act of war is? he s murdered in rampid war crimes, murdered thousands of ukrainians. we don t listen to what he believes about an act of war. you heard about what i said about a no fly zone. that s a very bad idea. but giving ukrainians the tools to fight their own war makes a lot of sense. if we re worried that putin will attack nato, what happens then is a very slow motion defeat, which he s experiencing right now becomes a very fast motion defeat. so, john, what do you make of that assessment about russia and whether or not russia is prepared to escalate this war to attack western supply routes, western weapons and armaments that are being delivered to ukraine? and more importantly, how should we in the west here perceive those attacks on our supply lines and armaments? well, i spoke to polish
new today, ukraine says it has restored a broken power line to the chernobyl power plant. the ukraine defense and intelligence agencies claim that vladimir putin ordered an attack at chernobyl. officials allege that putin intends to create a man made catastrophe that russians will try to pin on the ukrainians. how should we interpret this warning? let s bring in the executive control of the arms, dedicated to arms control measures on nuclear chemicals and biological weapons. joining us is a senior adviser of policy and advocacy who served as the senior director for nonprolive nation arms
russia and ukraine will meet again to negotiate just a few hours from now about 4:30 a.m. eastern time. now, while this is a diplomatic meeting, we have no sign that putin is actually interested in diplomacy at this point. his only offer to end the war has been to end it on his terms, and that is with ukraine submitting to russia s demands. also tonight, we have some breaking news on a different front. three u.s. officials have confirmed to nbc news that the u.s. government has reason to believe russia has asked china for military equipment as well as other support, we understand. the official did not say what equipment russia asked for and we don t know whether china agreed to the request or whether the u.s. even knows the answer to that question. we will have a live report on that in just a moment. and as we speak, the war is inching closer and closer to the borders of nato. ukrainian officials say at least 35 people were killed and 134