Page 122 - Off Ramp News Today

On russian-backed separatists, in the donbass, if theres an attack, i thought is this the false flag that the biden white house warned about. theyre effectively playing a very weak hand but doing it pretty well in part through people like us in the media. >> so i want to go to that picture, if we can, and youre seeing it now. thats president bolsonaro from brazil. he is having that joint press conference with president putin. we dont have any translation, so we cant see whats being said. but sym...

It? >> well, i think the ambassador was. right 120%. and in, fact president biden has been giving putin off ramp, after off-ramp, after off-ramp asper toonie for the last several months. president putin doesnt seem interested in taking, it and is pushing the envelope to the edge. but, this latest statement by the president, by president biden is clear. in alerting people, alerting our allies, alerting the ukrainians. and, if he gets embarrassed that vladimir putin holds back in, says im not goin...

Media said, its clear that the situation and donbass is ramping up. the situation at the borders of russia may ignited any moment. the highest level u.s. diplomats are now fanned out across the world, attempting to push this towards a diplomatic off-ramp. where do things stand in moscow? what is the sense on the ground there, as to whether or not russia is really ready to go to war? joining us now is ann simmons, for the wall street journal. and, thank you very much for getting up so egregiously...

Russia, he has invaded georgia, he has seized crimea, invaded the eastern part of the country already. maybe he is determined to carry out an operation that looks to me like a strategic disaster. >> jonathan, you have had, i dont know if i called it -- with vladimir putin, i -- you certainly challenged him at a press conference a few years ago. there you are. it joint press conference that he had with then president trump. when the white house is talking about their strategy that you just so cle...

Number of possible military options. i think its part of the administrations notion of transparency. you take the disinformation or information campaign of the russians away from them, and you put all this out there. i think the presidents pretty per persuaded, though, even if he wins the information war against putin, its not going to deter or dissuade him from acting in ukraine. and look, fred, from the beginning theres been three options here. one is a significant military operation for some ...

Well. but that for russia would be a diplomatic off-ramp. >> it seems like putin is covering the waterfront, and hes accelerating the military presence, and they are keeping the door to diplomacy open, and we know within the last hour blinken, secretary of state, may meet with russian officials if theres no war, so diplomacy is being pursued. is there a risk with the russian public not being on his side, or do you think russians themselves will stand with putin? >> well, russians are proud and n...

Security for which ukraine has been serving as a shield for eight years now. >> reporter: so while this all seems fairly apocalyptic, and we have been talking about the possibility of war for so many weeks now, alex, if theres one glimmer of hope for the u.s. diplomatic, its the fact that russia has agreed to a meeting between secretary of state blinken and russias foreign minister, sergey lavrov next week, blinken saying that they have agreed to hold the meeting in europe in the coming week so ...

Path might be and emmanuel macron is looking at the minsk agreement and trying to focus on that and said there was no level of engagement at all on that being a way through. ben wallaces conversations yesterday very much focused on minsk as a potential off ramp and i know that liz was able to land those same messages but a bit of different stage management to how the visits ended with a joint press conference in which sergei lavrov had messages that he needed to land with the russian public and ...

>> reporter: and a world in wait for russian president vladimir putins next move. >> it is entirely possible that he could move with little to no warning. >> reporter: biden because officials in a flurry of meetings. the national security team gathered at the white house with the world engross in the an urgent effort to find an elusive off-ramp as massive russian military drills continue in close proximity to the border. biden spoke this afternoon about the current state of play. >> we are prepa...

>> now even with thousands of american troops being on heigh heightened alert, he stressed that diplomacy is still the preferred method of de-escalation and he was asked could russia still pursue a diplomatic off-ramp and he answered yes. >> mj lee, thank you very much. lets bring in our cleave national security correspondent jim sciutto and diplomatic editor nic robertson joining us live from moscow. jim, the pentagon tonight said that russia has well north, their words, well north of 100,000...