ukrainians feel they have been at war the past eightsn necessa different. many people do say in the past couple of hours, days, the temperature has definitely increased here. alex. definitely so. matt bradley, thank you for watching things from ukraine. let s go to ledderman at the white housement vice president kamala harris, at the security conference in munich. what are we hearing from her in a big picture as all of this unfolds? reporter: we heard from her when she spoke and met with president zelensky of ukraine. there had been a lot of skepticism whether he was going to show up at the conference, given my colleagues and i reported yesterday that u.s. officials were concerned about zelensky leaving the country at a time when putin could invade at any moment, but he did make that trip, deciding to go anyway. in part to meet with kamala harris who is having perhaps her biggest moment on the world stage.
objecting to poland, lithuania, estonia, others who have gotten into nato, and certainly to any ukraine admission to nato, which he believes to be part of, recreate the soviet era of state, full, the irony is that he has strengthened the nato alliance on decline for many years, actually, since the cold war, the post cold war period, but now it has been strengthened, particularly by the biden administration, and that is one of the ironies here, but zelensky is now flying home, and he came here at some risk. he was warned against it by white house officials who thought that him leaving his country right now when the president of the united states has warned that war is imminent, that vladimir putin as the president said, has decided, has given the green light, if you will, for an invasion, an invasion of indeterminant size
a city of nearly 3 million in the coming days. russia can still choose diplomacy. it is not too late to deescalate and return to the negotiating table. reporter: there are no signs russia is backing away, defense officials say russia has moved half of its forces into attack position. u.s. intelligence suggests russia has up to 190,000 forces near and in ukraine. for weeks, biden has predicted russia could use addition information, false flag operations and cyber attacks to goad ukraine into war. the white house says that s exactly what s happening. we believe the russia government is responsible for wide scale cyber attacks on ukraine this week. reporter: russia is accusing ukraine genocide against russian speakers, allegations mr. biden called phony and fabricated. and when it comes to that assertion from the president that putin has made a decision. we heard from the defense
russians believed should be part of the country. ukraine, most would accept as an independent country. putin is taking a domestic political risk at home. that s why he has to gin up that we have to do this in defense of russians. he needs some narrative to sell his people about why to take that risk. i think the whole thing is complicated, too, though, by the fact that look, the united states has a commitment to go to war to defend any nato member who s attacked and that would include poland, lithuania, latvia and estonia. one of the reasons it s hard to envision ukraine coming into nato in the near future is we have to be honest about whether or not americans would send american troops to go to war against russia for ukraine, and so ukraine is stuck in this kind of gray space where russia cares about it a lot, we care about it a lot, but the question is who s going to fight and it looks like it s going to be a ukraine fighting against a much stronger
ukraine. certainly sensing a shift in tone there today, what are you seeing, and what are you sensing right now? seeing on the street, it s all the same, but i have to tell you that the tensions here are sky high. among other metrics, you know, not far from where i am now, across the belarusian board, we have president putin of russia, with missile tests. here s our report from today. the drums of war are now deafening, with russian soldiers drilling in belarus, and civilians flees from russian separatist territory. one separatist leader calling his people to arms. i appeal to all the men of the republic, able to hold weapons this their hands, stand up for their families, their children, wives, mothers, he said this morning. the u.s. warning russia s