belarusian president alexander lukashenko said his forces were not there to kill. translation: we are not fighting for anyone. - there is only one company of our troops peacekeepers. we ve informed the un that we would like to help kazakhstan to restore peace. we came to kazakhstan not to kill or not to fight. we are peaceful people. our servicemen are peaceful people. we need to stop the fratricidal war, and we are doing exactly that. i ve been speaking to franak viacorka, who is a senior advisor to sviatlana tsikhanouskaya, the exiled belarusian opposition leader. i asked him what reaction there had been in belarus to csto troops being sent to kazakhstan. it s shameful. belarusians should not fight abroad and should not participate in such operations should not help other dictators to stay in power by all means. and what are your thoughts on the csto in general? because obviously this is the first time they ve been
belarussian president alexander lukashenko said his forces were not there to kill. translation: we are not fighting for anyone. - there is only one company of our troops peacekeepers. we ve informed the un that we would like to help kazakhstan to restore peace. we came to kazakhstan not to kill or not to fight. we are peaceful people. our servicemen are peaceful people. we need to stop the fratricidal war and we are doing exactly that. well, earlier i spoke to eugene chausovsky, an analyst with the new lines institute think tank, about the precedent set by this csto deployment. i think from russia s perspective they couldn t afford not to act. having seen these protests get out of hand quite quickly and then paired with what has happened around the region from ukraine to belarus, i think russia made the calculus that it needed to send
military operation. joining me now is nbc s matt bodner in moscow, scott perry in poland and peter baker. so, matt, i do want to start with you and what is going on in moscow. russia is calling these troops peacekeepers. the west is not buying that. germany has already said no to the nord stream 2 pipeline. the president, president biden, is about to come out and announce a fleet of economic sanctions. what are you hearing there? thank you, katy. reporter: there s a lot of activity. the past 24 hours i ve seen significant developments in this story. we saw vladimir putin this evening being granted an authorization to deploy the russian military beyond russia s borders. that was, of course, a curious move. a peacekeeping deployment was
that allows us to say okay, we might, for a short period if this is the leverage. a, form a coalition of the government now and we tell them what we want. coalition of allawi, centrist and al-maliki, the shiite leader. secondly, we want to help defer any cost. the way to sell this according to the treaty and the treaty status of forces agreement says we re out, every american is out by the end of in the military out by 2011. rename the troops peacekeepers. in other words we say we stay six months or a year. we call the mission a different name. it s not overturning the agreement. a different phase with a different mission. if we need another half year or year, that would stabilize iraq again if we have a stable government, that would be something that would be
that allows us to say okay, we might, for a short period if this is the leverage. a, form a coalition of the government now and we tell them what we want. coalition of allawi, centrist and al-maliki, the shiite leader. secondly, we want to help defer any cost. the way to sell this according to the treaty and the treaty status of forces agreement says we re out, every american is out by the end of in the military out by 2011. rename the troops peacekeepers. in other words we say we stay six months or a year. we call the mission a different name. it s not overturning the agreement. a different phase with a different mission. if we need another half year or year, that would stabilize iraq again if we have a stable government, that would be something that would be