understood as advance paymen for a geopolitical grail close to home, a vassal ukrainia state. as he argues, the cloud of controversy surrounding 2016 which can called russia, great obscure the central role that ukraine, specifically, played i vladimir putin s - for the whole thing. it s a long, complicated story it contains characters you might have a - night of thought about i years. there is manafort he has lengthy ties with kremlin link politicians i ukraine. a guy who worked for manafort, named kilimnik who is a russian asset, wh fled ukraine is in russia now. the oversimplify version of th whole thing is that kilimnik the guys are, they re th accused by, pitch manafort and by extension, the trum campaign, and audacious land grab quote, known loosely as th mariupol plan, after the strategically vital port city, it called for the creation o an autonomous republic and
kilimnik, shadowy figure who the u.s. intelligence believes is the russians, approached trump s then campaign manage jury paul manafort with a you scratch my back i will scratch yours proposal. quote, a secret plan whose significance would only become clear six years later, as vladimir v. putin s inviting russian army pushed into ukraine. no loosely has the mariupol plan after the strategically vital port city, it called for the creation of an autonomous republican ukraine s east, giving putin effective control of the country s industrial heartland. the scheme cut against decades of american policy promoting a free and united ukraine. but trump was already suggested-ing that if he would abandon the diplomatic status quo if elected, kilimnik believed trump could help make the mariupol plan a reality. with the plan offered on paper is essentially what putin is now trying to seize through sham referendums and illegal annexation. and mariupol is shorthand for
john: united states commits billions more to ukraine will it do any good at this point? wisconsin congressman mike gallagher here in moments with his thoughts on that, but first, tampa bay you can have him for the moment but not forever. tom brady set to be joining a new team, not another nfl franchise. fox corporation c.e.o. announcing the seven-time super bowl champ and goat will be joining fox sports. top game analyst once he decides to step away from the game. brady says he s excited about his post playing career but adds a whole lot of unfinished business left on the field. note to tom, just don t take forever. jacqui: and don t change your mind, please. john: yeah, changed your mind about retirement, don t change your mind about this. jacqui: putin s forces launching missile strikes on the vital port city of odesa in ukraine, hammering the mariupol steel plant where the defenders
doesn t seem like they were from much of the city center here. and that s in addition to three or four explosions we heard about an hour or so ago now. so clearly something is happening around this key vital port city. it is essentially ukraine s access to the black sea, the outside maritime world, a key place that you would imagine that if they re dealing with the wider-scale nightmare version of the vladimir putin operation that western officials have talked about that might be within russian crosshairs at the moment. and certainly the blasts we ve heard, as i say, it seemed distant from the city center here. about five or six of them at this point would seem to support that something is occurring in the outskirts of the city at this time. but the sun has risen here, don, on an incredibly calm place. we are waking up, locals here, to tell them at times the news of what has happened. sob certainly not a panic yet in
kicked in. that is the big question, are they trying to empty the city out for some larger-scale assault. one of the things you mentioned in the lead-in to all this, certainly seems to be interesting right now, that s that giant russian convoy that seems to be north of kyiv. that is something of huge concern to the ukrainians, the u.s. and its allies watching the situation unfold as well, michael. absolutely. fred pleitgen there on the russian border. pr appreciate it. let s bring in nick payton walsh from odesa. give us a sense of what s happening there. reporter: yeah, obviously places like this, odesa, third largest city in ukraine, vital port city. and where we were over the last 47, 72 hours, smaller towns mykolyiv deeply concerned. they have a long history of