Page 151 - Nic News Today

People, but not full scale. >> nic, what is their attitude as far as you can tell toward ukrainians these days? generally russians think of ukrainians as their brothers, but is the state media trying to portray the kyiv government as kind of the enemy? >> reporter: certainly the government and an absolute diminution of president zelensky at every opportunity. president putin when he met with president macron, they held a press conference just on monday, you know, six days ago, he used some reall...

Us. the french president macron has a high-stakes meeting with president putin. he hopes diplomacy can deescalate tensions over ukraine as the united states is warning russia could invade any day. cnns nic robertson live in moscow with more. a preview of this very important meeting, nic. >> reporter: yeah. the russians are saying dont expect to break through. theyre saying their security demands have not been met. theyre not hearing anything along those lines. they continue to deny this milita...

She is the bureau chief for the economist and richard haass is the president for the council on foreign relations. nic, let me start with you, a crucial question many have been asking is what is the mood inside russia? is russia, is the government, preparing the public for what are? remember, all russian media is essentially state controlled, so it would give us some indication of the russian governments intentions. >> reporter: we watch it carefully for that reason. at the moment you do see tho...

However, russian officials have typically dismissed any talk of invasion. they have previously called it, quote, hysteria on the part of u.s. officials and the media, something they did again today. nic robertson, our international diplomatic editor in moscow with the latest. nic, what are you hearing from the kremlin tonight? >> reporter: interestingly, the kremlin came out pretty quickly after the announcements coming from the white house. the spokesman saying, look, we repeatedly reject these...

Relationship with this chancellor that he did with the former-german chancellor, angela merkel. so, he made clear that one big mission that he had in having this bi-lat meeting today was simply to get to know his counterpart better. >> we will see what the results are in the coming days. mj lee, at the white house, following developments there. now, to moscow and our international diplomatic editor, nic robertson. nic, what is the latest from moscow? and what they are saying about the diplomatic...

Robinson joins us, sophie pedderson and richard haass is the president for the council on foreign relations. nic, let me start with you, a crucial question many have been asking is what is the mood inside russia? is russia, is the government, preparing the public for what are? remember, all russian media is essentially state controlled, so it would give us some indication of the russian governments intentions. >> reporter: we watch it carefully for that reason. at the moment you do see those pro...

Ukrainian border. for good reason, that claim from putin was met with a healthy dose of skepticism given claims he has made before that were not accurate or maybe they were moving the forces around but leaving the equipment, allowing them to come back at a later date. two things that stood out from the president today was saying they still havent verified those claims that they do believe there is still a distinct possibility of an invasion happening, which they have been warning about pretty lo...

Tone that we see publicly from the president is far more strident and we heard him yesterday again in munich saying, listen, if your intelligence really does tell you that this is happening, why arent those sanctions already being levied? why arent those heavier sophisticated weapons already being given to us? and if the intelligence isnt as decisive as you claim it is, then please stop using this type of language because its panicking the ukrainian people, its destabilizing ukraines economy and...

With, with nic and cedric which is, will the russian leader announce to the nation tonight that hes doing just that in effect declaring independence for these eastern provinces there, which we should be very clear which are slicing off for russia pieces of a sovereign nation. ukraine, for the second time. already did it with crimea. so this would be a second time. and again, this is what he apparently told macron and scholz. of course, we havent heard from the south of the russian president yet....

Actually taking any serious measures to stop the russian invasion militarily. russian special forces, russian tanks, russian missiles, russian mortars all part of putins no-holds-barred assault on ukraine, an independent sovereign nation. nearly 400 separate shellings have been reported since the start of russias invasion of ukraine overnight. explosions, air raid sirens pulse every hour inside ukraines major cities. today were seeing scenes we havent witnessed really since world war ii. civilia...