between here and the polish border, this is the closest the most direct strike on lviv, the city itself, and a local military official here in this region has said three explosions could be russian rockets, we don t know yet. what we re looking at is clearly a fuel depot, ablaze and firefighters battling those flames as i m speaking to you live on msnbc. jacob, the timing of this cannot be lost on you and those assessing what is happening here as well as our viewers, if you think about it, the eyes of the world have been focused on brussels over the last couple of days with the president there at the nato headquarters, having these talks and a show of unity. today they have been focused on warsaw, president biden meeting with not only president duda of poland, but also meeting with
that s frightening. and we re just afraid he s going to keep moving. he s going to keep moving. we ukrainian mothers are ready to strangle him with our bare hands to be honest. reporter: and so that is the emotional atmosphere here right now as president biden himself just a few minutes ago called president putin of russia a butcher, alex, and he is expected, when he speaks in about an hour from now at a castle down the street from here, to really lay out for americans in broad terms why this matters, why this is a fight between authoritarianism and democracy that the u.s. and its allies are hoping to be on the right side of. president biden hoping to drive home for people that this is a conflict that matters beyond just ukraine and its neighbors, that really this is about how countries want to conduct themselves in the 21st century. alex. josh lederman in warsaw,
for him to go further. perhaps they re not taking into account the big picture were he to do so. nonetheless, how does this speech play into domestic politics back home? yeah, alex, first of all, president biden s numbers have gone up in polls because of the way he s handled this war, he s handled this war effectively, and strategically he s put politics aside, he s put democracy first, and he has really preached democracy over autocracy. he is uniting not just the world but to an extent, our country that needs as much uniting. i want to give props for that. also, alex, it s very important that president biden is giving the speech to warsaw, right next door to ukraine. he s getting as close as he can to where russia is putting their focus and their action because he wants to be as close to that as possible. so i think it s very important that he s giving the speech not from the oval office today but
global consumption of president biden s speech, i think you also want to make sure that your core message isn t altered by something that happened during the day because that s the whole point here. absolutely. we have a strategy we re going to carry out no matter what happens. one more question, i know i have to let you go, nato has made clear ukraine is going to decide for itself what it is willing to agree to in negotiations to try to get this conflict over and done with. should, though, nato be more involved in trying to mediate? could nato have influence in any sort of a deal between russia and ukraine? well, first of all, i think the basic principle that the ukrainians decide what they re willing to accept and not accept has to be the principle that everybody abides by. i think and the reality is nato is inevitably involved in these negotiations. one of the things that s clearly on the table is a statement from the ukrainians that they are not going to intend to join nato
with the little girl, take a picture with her. to see the tears in his eyes, it was an important moment that i think was going to stand out, again, in a sea of strife, and a sea of sorrow, to demonstrate the fact that he, as president of the united states, is doing all he can to try to help the people of ukraine, and of course, alex, he just announced a couple of days ago that the u.s. will be taking in 100,000 ukrainian refugees. i think that s an important statement. i think other countries, you know, besides the ones who are doing this now and in europe, will take that to heart, and will follow his lead because, you know, poland can only take so many. they re pretty much saturated at this point. everyone needs to step up to the plate. i think that was a really important moment for president biden. absolutely. and to that immigration point that adrienne is essentially making, do you hear any republican dissension in the process of taking in a hundred