one way to describe the obama/putin relationship is ice cold at best. the issues in the ukraine is making it easier and icier. putin told obama to butt out. he responded watch me. telling obama, the case of any further spread of violence in eastern ukraine and crimea, russia retains the right to protect its interests. how far the two sides have fallen, back in 2009, obama had high hopes for russian/u.s. relations after things went south between george w. bush and putin. the now famous and less than successful russian reset. we want to reset our
chance who spent six years reporting from moscow. spent a lot of time here in ukraine and also ben wedeman is joining us in crimea. bed, let me start off with you, what is the situation you have been witnesses over the last 12-24 hours on the ground? certainly what we re seeing is that the russians are very much in control of all major areas in crimea, we were today at a court in the eastern part of the country where we saw a contingent of about 100 of these so called men in green. we spoke to their commander and he did have a hat with an insig new ya with the russian black fleet. he said his name was alexander, they ve been here since the first of march, we saw that locals were am coulding to offer them food, support, shelter and even showers. so we re seeing that the
crimea. it s a little before dawn on tuesday morning, the start of a day no one can predict, what will happen over the next 12 hours. people are hoping and praying it does not end in bloodshed. there has been far too much bloodshed already. in this area here, people died a little more than a week and a half ago, right now it s considered holy ground a place of martyrs, flowers, makeshift memorials all around the barricades, the sandbags are all still up, all still a sign of what happened here a short time ago. the protesters remain, because they want to make sure that the changes that the new government here in ukraine have promised will take root. the promises made will be followed up on. the new government here, a shaky government at best, an interim president, a new prime minister, they re certainly hoping now that diplomacy will work in order to alter the situation on the ground in crimea. the government here is looking
it is a fact that russian jets entered ukrainian airspace. samantha power making clear in words what the people of crimea see on the streets. the heavily armed troops have tightened their grip on the crimea region of ukraine. it all unraveled quickly over the last 72 hours. the russian federation constitute an act of aggression against the state of ukraine. that in response to russian president vladimir putin receiving authorities saturday from his parliament to use military force in ukraine. all the while, the spectacle continued. a mystery gunman with no insignias on their uniforms, patrolling the streets. where are you from? russia. from where in russia? it s not important. but it is important to nearly all of europe and the united
administration, dealing with russia and dealing with prime minister putin and then president putin, sometimes it did appear he had bad information in the meetings i had with him or if it wasn t bad, it was deliberately falsified information. i mean, you ve heard, if you ve been watching any of the russian press as i have over the last few days, you would believe that there have been nazi organizations, terrorist organizations flooding into crimea, and, therefore, the russians there have to be protected. we know from your reporting and from cnn s reporting and other reporters in crimea, that that s absolute nonsense. so one wonders what kind of information president putin has at his disposal, and one has to be nervous about it if he doesn t have alternative sources of information. can vladimir putin be trusted? this is not a game of trust, this is a game of interest, short term versus long term, and i think the western world, including the president of the