cnn that 80% of the russian forces near ukraine s border are in forward positions, ready to go. some as few as three miles from the border. putin has a lot of capability at his disposal right now, as i ve said earlier. they are ready to go. it won t be bloodless. there will be suffering, there will be sacrifice, and all of that must and should be laid at his feet because he s doing this by choice. reporter: the warning comes as the ukrainian government has put in place a state of emergency for the country. ukraine is already feeling the impact of russia s power play. in recent days the separatist regions have been firing shells into ukraine, destroying homes, a preview of a full-scale invasion that could start at any time. we ve heard for some time about the buildup of russian forces along ukraine s border. we don t often get to see it. take a look at this video. this is a tank formation just
now. brian, trump is picking up clearly where he left off as president, cozying up to putin. he is doing that again, wolf, just as he did stlu out his presidency and now, as then, many are worried that donald trump is undermining his country s standing with russia and with its own allies. it was extraordinary, even by donald trump standards, the former president fawning over vladimir putin s aggression in ukraine during an interview with the conservative radio show. i went in yesterday, and there was a television screen. i said this is genius. putin declares a big portion of the ukraine, of ukraine, putin declares it as independent. oh, that s wonderful. reporter: trump said putin never would have dared to make these moves if trump had been president, but he still pressed on with the compliments. i said how smart is that, and he s going to go in and be the piece keeper. that s the strongest piece
another country? wolf, how do you say there is no bottom in russia? that is where we are right now with donald trump. none of this should be sur surp surprising. if you look how trump fawned over putin, kowtowed to putin over the past five years, this is perfectly in character. you ll recall in 2016 when he invited the russians to find hillary clinton s emails, his own family met with the russians at trump tower. the helsinki moment when trump said he trusted putin more than the u.s. intelligence community. at one point donald trump held up military hardware to ukraine in an attempt to shakedown the ukrainians for dirt on joe biden, that was how he got impeached the first time around. i asked the trump advisor what trump has been saying about putin over the last couple days. his trump adviser said it was sloppy the way donald trump went around doing this. he meant to say that biden got
disaster and catastrophe as well. i have seen reports there could be hundreds of thousands of refugees, people fleeing ukraine, maybe millions. is that right? i think anything is possible in this circumstance. but we re talking about a proud ukrainian people who are going to stand up for their country, and the whole world is in solidarity with them. we have seen that even in the last couple of days, not just from our allies and partners, but from others around the world. we heard and you heard, wolf, at the munich security conference foreign minister wang yi of the people s republican of china, the prc, say sovereignty and territorial integrity are critical principles, and that included ukraine. i hope that putin will listen to the prc. they obviously connected in front of the olympics to say that they had an important partnership with each other.
in russia, here in washington for our special coverage of this global crisis. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer, you re in the situation room. this hour u.s. officials are on high alert fearing vladimir putin is about to take russia s invasion of ukraine to the next level and launch a full-scale attack. we begin our special coverage with cnn s chief national security correspondent jim sciutto in ukraine. reporter: a further invasion has begun. the russian military is entering the separatist regions of eastern ukraine, now recognized by russia as independent. according to the information that s at my disposal, putin is moving in additional forces and tanks into the occupied donbas territories. we certainly believe that