for them. i spoke to a young ukrainian women yesterday who was from kyiv and had come over here to lviv. i said do you think the russians spread to the west quickly? she said i don t think so. i think they re bogged down in the west and will get stuck by the main river flowing through the middle of the country and then paused for a few seconds and goes, well, at least i tell myself that so i can sleep at night. you see small units of families with a bag between them and many with the pets trying to figure out the next move and hard to figure out while this is going on. it is a very desperate situation. also, an eerie place here in the evening. it is a safe zone, a city on edge.
russia and zelenskyy of ukraine, to get together at some point. it sounds improbable right now, but talks do happen during a war, and they have already been three rounds of talks between ukrainian and russian delegations. those happen every time on the border between ukraine and belarus. both sides are talking, but the very best they ve come up with so far have been attempts at local ceasefires. the a.p. s philip crowther in lviv for us. thank you, we re grateful. joining our coverage, former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. he just recently spoke with ukrainian president zelenskyy. we want to hear all about that and with us onset, rick stengel, who was the longest serving undersecretary of state in our country s history, countering russian disinformation efforts. ambassador mcfaul, i bought a white board, i ll get it in a break. last time you were here, you were giving me the breakdown on oligarchs and i said, i will bring a white board next time but what i want to underst
straight out of russia s disinformation playbook, they called out russia s preposterous claim that the united states is developing such weapons in ukraine. and they say that russia may use that lie, that lie that biological weapons are being developed in ukraine, to launch its own attack. that s how dangerous that lie is. put a pin in that for later in the show. it s where we start this conversation, though, first in lviv, ukraine, is philip krauter. i wonder if you can sort of take me today from east to west, from the horrors in mariupol, from that city s mayor saying that they are having to turn to mass graves, from the news that three people died in that attack, to what kyiv seems to be bracing for and what continues to be, it was described earlier in our program as eerily quiet where you are in lviv. reporter: yeah, the south and
happening in ukraine today. you know, i m from kyiv city and half of my friends who are girls had already left with their babies, with their children, so people who used to i don t know run big offices in my country are sleeping with their babies at the rail stations in poland or in lviv on the floor just waiting for hours in lines just to cross the border to save their kids is something i cannot still believe is happening in the country. some stay and send the kids abroad with parents, with their grandparents. but they stay there with the husbands to protect the city. it s crazy. all these people dream about is that they will not be refugees the rest of their lives and would have a place to come back and that s what ukrainians are
false flag operation or against ukraines. this is something that s a part of russia s playbook. they ve used the weapons against their own people and encouraged the use in syria. that s where we begin today. correspondent ali aruza moved. nbc news pentagon correspondent courtney kube is with us. let me start with the day that was. the horrors in mariupol first becoming more fully visible to the rest of the world as they bury their dead. i guess a couple bright spots in some of the corridors holding up. tell me the sense of lviv. reporter: it is a city