and a reach that s hard to match. a journalist is posting photos highlighting the damage from his country s invasion. the risk of going public is obvious. the number of views on tiktok videos tagging ukraine in the last nine days of february, just over 6 billion to 17 billion according to wired magazine. now some of the players are using social media as well. ukraine s defiant leader zelenskyy has posted his own videos from the streets and even gave cnn an interview from his secret bunker. are you not concerned though that the kremlin will double down on its military operations and hit ukraine even harder? translator: firstly, why are we winning, why are we defending ourselves? this is home. howard: and a mom who serves in parliament tweeted a photo of herself with a kalashnikov rifle and did some interviews as well. incentive over held a gun
been on the show, that this war on your country is bigger than a war on your country, that this is a war of democracy versus autocracy. am i viewing this correctly? absolutely. absolutely. ukraine did nothing to provoke this. ukraine was never a threat to russia. even after russia grabbed crimea illegally in 2014, even though we had all the legal right to take it back, we never tried it, we never used anything about diplomacy to restore our territorial integrity. so this is totally unprovoked, brutal war by russian criminal forces in ukraine, where they are suffering losses. we have more than 11,000 russians killed already in ukraine. they are hiding this information from their people. 11,000. it s almost the same, it was 15,000 that was killed during the soviet invasion in
the president is clear, we are clear, we are not going to put u.s. troops in ukraine to fight the russians. howard: and there s a good reason for that, there s no appetite in either party or most of the press for a ground war between two nuclear powers right on russia s border. those who are demanding a no-fly zone are missing the fact that shooting down planes and capturing pilots would mean war with russia. the invasion has taken an ominous turn with the seizing of ukraine s largest power plant and strangling people with who no longer have power or electricity. the incredibly brave resistant dance of ukrainian, but it s where the reporting, unfortunately, is taking us. i m howard kurtz, and this is mediabuzz. howard: first, let s go live to ukraine where fox news correspondent trey yingst joins us from kyiv. trey, what s the latest? reporter: howard, while a fierce ukrainian resistance
kind of resis towns they re going to face, but the ukrainian people are pledging to fight. we have seen it in the streets here, civilians picking up arms, molotov cocktails, anything they can find. just a few days ago we met with the president, and he said he will stay and fight on behalf of his people. howard? howard: trey yingst, thanks very much. the pundits are certainly clashing over how much responsibility president biden bears for the invasion of ukraine, but almost everyone is onboard with the notion that america and its allies must use all our pressure against vladimir putin. as long as the u.s. and joe biden and our european allies, as long as they continue to import oil and gas from russia, you, the american people, ostensibly are funding this war and making russia and putin richer hand he s ever been. it does feel morally intolerable, as the ambassador was putting it, for the western world to stand united and
trump doing things outside of the norm, not the cookie cutter type response or activities. but those things yielded results. russia did not invade anywhere under donald trump, and nato is stronger, and countries have paid more into that organization. look, you understand that people around the world knew that they could count on the united states to be the piggybank for the world, in essence, and howard: no, i think it was [inaudible conversations] nato wasn t going to go away. look, i ve got a minute left, let me ask you this. you started out by saying everyone knows now vladimir putin is evil. and yet the former president initially called him a genius for the way he maneuvered in ukraine. he has criticized the invasion but hasn t really criticized vladimir putin personally. why not? he s called this thing a holocaust, he said it s a travesty. donald trump understands who putin is. he had to work with him every single day howard: he also said he was a