Earlier i spoke with matthew schmidt, a professor of national security and political science at the university of new haven in connecticut. i asked him about why the russians would use tactics which are designed explicitly to terrorize the civilian population. what the russian troops are trying to do right now, what they ve been ordered to do is essentially to put so much pain, put so much horror into the civilian population, that that forces zelenskyy to negotiate from a position he may not be ready to negotiate from. on the other hand, it also forces him to act before he s ready, particularly in the donbas right now. so, you know, the new general dvornikov can sit here and use this kind of policy, this strategy of committing war crimes and terrifying the civilian population, to control the negotiating standpoint of his enemy. well, we heard from the russian president, vladimir putin, actually talking about
for the first time, u.s. president joe biden accusing russia of committing genocide in ukraine. biden made the comments while talking about an increase in gasoline prices. he then repeated the accusation latewith reporters. i called it genocide because it s become clearer and clearer that putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be ukrainian. and the evidence is mounting. we ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me. president biden s words were welcomed by the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelenskyy, who called them the true words of a true leader. meantime, new satellite images reveal military equipment deployed on russian soil not far from ukraine s border as military convoys also have been seen moving through eastern ukraine near donbas.
Zelenskyy in a situation where because he needs a national referendum to get through any kind of peace agreement, he s unlikely to get that now. the sense of the ukrainian population has turned. on the other hand, russia has never been negotiating from a position of good faith. and so both sides now are racing to get position in the donbas. the russians are flipping the battlefield. they re going from the offense to the defense in large part because they ve lost so many junior officers that they need to be in a defensive position where it s easier to operate, right? where the simple order is hold the line, and they can wait to try to reman when they get the new conscripts trained up and moved into place. so that s the game that s going on right now, and i wouldn t put any faith into these negotiations. we ll have more from ukraine later this hour, but let s go back to paula in atlanta. we have more now on that investigation into the new york subway shooting. police are looking for