ukraine to evacuate them, that they will be on their own. and to that effect, today, the u.s. embassy announcing that as of tomorrow, it is suspending all consular services at the embassy here in kyiv, and the first major airliner, dutch airline klm, has suspended its flights to the capital as well. okay, erin mclaughlin, thank you for the latest from kyiv. joining me right now, barry mccaffrey, retired four-star u.s. army general, former gulf war division commander, former member of the national security council and currently our esteemed msnbc military analyst. general, thank you, my friend, for joining us. so, you have certainly been in tense situations before. how do you expect this phone call played out between presidents biden and putin? well, probably very badly. look, what s going on, i ve never seen anything like it. since 1850, russian military operations are always masked in
dutch airline klm said it would stop flying to ukraine and germany s lufthansa said it was considering suspending flights. and a consignment of stinger surface to air missiles have arrived in kyiv from lithuania one of the nato member countries sending military support to ukraine. in the uk, the defence secretary has drawn parallels with the diplomatic efforts that took place before the second world war. jonathan blake has more. taking steps to bring russia back from the brink. the defence secretary, ben wallace, has been holding talks in moscow this week to avoid a possible russian invasion of ukraine. russia denies it is planning for that, but with more troops moving to its border with the country, some fear diplomacy may be futile. in an interview with the sunday times, ben wallace said the current situation had a whiff of munich in the air
first major airliner, dutch airline klm has announced that it s suspending all flights to kyiv. alex. erin, i m going to get back with you as well, and ask you to stay through this next conversation as we are all joined by timothy frie, codirector for the study of institutions and development at the higher school of economics in moscow, also author of weak strongman, the limits of power in putin s russia, timothy, welcome to you. you know a few things about vladimir putin, so what do you think is the number one point that he wanted to drive home to president putin today on that phone call? i think just as the biden administration has been trying to paint this conflict as a war of choice for vladimir putin, that the ball is in his court, i m sure the president putin was using the same tactic on president biden saying that the resolution of the crisis is in
live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with john vause. great to have you with us here on cnn. and this week begins with a russian invasion of ukraine, appearing to inch closer by the hour. the german chancellor will be the latest heading to kyiv and moscow to try to end this crisis and avoid a war. he is expected to touch down in kyiv in the coming hours. but as he arrives, multiple countries including germany, u.s., britain have ordered evacuations at their embassies and advised their citizens to either leave or prepare for war. dutch airline klm has now suspended all flights to ukraine. germany s lufthansa says it s considering the same. the black sea is now blocked by a massive display of russian naval firepower, part of routine war games says the kremlin. but that means ukraine is
in order to avoid military conflict. ukraine s desire to join the mutual defence alliance has been one of the key fault lines in diplomatic talks between the west and russia. moscow has demanded assurances from western powers that ukraine will not be admitted. but the us is refusing to bar ukraine from nato, saying that, as a sovereign nation, it should be free to decide on its own security alliances. earlier today, us president biden spoke to the ukrainian president zelensky by phone with the two agreeing to pursue diplomacy and deterrence in response to russia s military build up on ukraine s borders. in other developments on sunday, more than a dozen countries have now urged their citizens to leave the country including some in asia, like here in singapore. and international monitors left a part of eastern ukraine which is held by pro russian groups. dutch airline klm said it would stop flying to ukraine and germany s lufthansa said it was considering suspending flights.