helene what would a second phase of this invasion look like? do you think it would be artillery? would bit from the air? tanks rolling toward kyiv? keeping in mind that, you know, russia can do whatever it chooses, there s some concern about air strikes being the likely next step, and so that will be something to keep an eye out for. but there s also a lot of concern about cyber. administration officials expect, warn that you could see cyberattacks pretty quickly and you could see a quick attack on ukraine s communications structure, ability for the military to have communications and command control with its troops on the ground, troops in the east. you could see all of ukraine, as one pentagon official described to me, going dark, he said, and that means the russians would quickly seize control of the air space and all of the sort of
right, an uncompromising president putin speaking on russian television just as he did last night with the long, long televised tirade. andrea. and richard ang aal, in eastern ukraine he was saying people seem to think it was life as normal. they d gotten used to a certain level of russian troops. but putin has been so explis andt all the analysis has been he s still going in, in a big way. this does not mean that the larger invasion they had been anticipating that the president actually predicted last week, is actually going to happen. well, people have been living on a roller coaster. and it was a small demonstration a few moments ago when i was talking to protesters out here to support the ukrainian government. every day they are trying to figure out what is next.
luhansk. where the ukrainian government is firmly in charge. there are a lot of ukrainian troops in and around the area. if putin does intend to take these areas, it would be a much more overt war and hostile level of conflict than what we ve seen now with putin taking over or providing protection to peace-keeping services, as he described it, to an area russia already has. that may well explain why the u.s. officials, white house officials overnight began to reassess their initial reaction, as you know, as you ve been reporting is not really an invasion because russians have been there for eight years and it really solidified overnight. reporter: it did and administration officials are telling me what they witnessed on the ground overnight, everything richard mapped out is why they re shifting language
what they should do for themselves, for their families. many woke up this morning feeling somewhat relieved that there wasn t a major invasion but now they re nervous again going back to the point he was just making. what happened in the hour-long speech by president putin sitting behind his desk with his several phones beside him, he talked about how ukraine doesn t exist. it s not a country, doesn t deserve to be country. that it s a creation of mistakes of the soviet past that have been exacerbated by nato and corruption. and then today he really added a lot more specificity. when putin last night said he was recognizing the break away areas, he didn t specify the borders and today he said it is not just the areas the separatists hold, it s the entire region of donbas and
donetsk territories, russia dominated for years, that s it. but is the real invasion still to come? i think the short answer and thank you for having me, andrea. it s good to see you. i think the short answer to your question is nobody knows at this point. the pentagon has not yet provided independent confirmation of an invasion. we re expecting president biden will likely call it that when he appears to speak to us. and there s no telling at this point where vladimir putin could stop. up until now you ve been playing for weeks russian officials denying that their troops are there to do anything more than military exercises. they ve, you know, called the term ludicrous all of the american and the biden