resources they can possibly put to bear on security in russia. particularly what they call the perimeter. the ring of steel is what they are calling. the rail to the mountain where the skiing will take place. 100,000 security and 40,000 military forces are all there n visible sign of force. before the ring of steel was put in place, how many cells were there is my question. and when the black widows have penetrated the steel. they are widows of militants who have been killed by the russians. it only takes one suicide bomber to set things off. i think the bigger threat is probably not within the perimeter itself which is hardened. but more outside where the
that was sited in a place that has this kind of regional conflict that has this kind of concern for security that we re seeing here? not in recent memory. i worked all these olympics, athens and china. we ve not seen specific threats like we ve seen here. that said, some of the plans that the security plans that the government s talking about we did for every olympics, so an extraction plan to get the athletes and americans out in an emergency. that s kind of standard planning, emergency planning. you hope you never have to use it but it s good to know that the government is thinking about it. security measures related to the athletes and the families and sort of those spectators are really quite different. there s a level of planning and sort of the ring of steel that you put around the athletes so that they can focus. this is their moment they ve been training for. you want them not to have to think about anything else. but it s a very individual decision, as you can see just here
in terms of russia s special ops? no, i m not. again, their primary concern is going to be politicians first, athletes second. think about it. you have spectators. you have tourists. they re going to be left out of this. my primary concern, having worked with the russians before, they tend to be very insulateed when it comes to their response. i think their first response will be to control media damage, not necessarily evacuation and security for spectators. you ve done security response before, been to russia a couple of times. on top of that, they did a security dry run in russia. they did a test of sending 48 people. 25 got through. if you are determined to go and don t leave the so-called ring of steel, keep that in mind. so 48 got 48 went, 25 got through the ring of steel. sounds like a failure.
occurrence now. obviously, 63,000 police and soldiers just fortifying the ring of steel, but when you see these kinds of shootouts, it s easy to see what the concerns are in the region. yes, what s worrying about these shootouts, they are not taking place in villages on the outskirts of civilization, they are taking place in the capital of dagestan, where russian forces should have this area secured. so i guess the problem here is if they can t secure dagestan, how much can they secure sochi, and if you see civilians attacked and raids taking place there, there s worrying given the proximity. i think that s obvious, yeah. we know the state department issued a travel warning for americans, obviously, attractive terror targets and noted the possible presence of black widow suicide bombers, which you and i have talked about. where are we with that? because we ve gotten some conflicting reports from russian
spectators and athletes at the sochi olympics. including thousands of americans who will be there just to watch. but so far moscow has not asked for specific help. to even know there are increasing concerns about possible terror attacks. now, russia is putting on a show of force deploying 40,000 heavily armed police and security officials to sochi. cnn international correspondent nic payton walsh is in the host city. hello, nick. telling the americans to be careful when they come here, some are worried whether their narrest and dearest should come to sochi to watch them compete. the state department has been warning american athletes not to look too american when they venture out. the ring of steel where i m standing if they venture out into southern russia. the u.s. olympic committee