russianis troops in belarus practicing urban combat. u.s. officials say this week is critical. declaring russia is now able to attackia with little or no warning. o so the u.s. is now moving its embassy personnel out of the capital to western ukraine, a move criticized by ukraine s president zelensky suggesting it showed weakness and zelensky was dismissve of u.s. intelligence which russia could soon invade which causes panic, february 16 will be thewh day of attack ande will make it a day of unity and he was referring to recent media report. presidentri biden spoke with president putin. no break throughs. todaywi russia s foreign minist met the russian president at the end of yet another long table. telling him there sno still roo for diplomacy. putin in a tight covid bubble has met leaders at what seems like social distance, plus. russia says it won t invade.
so i wonder what the reaction to that in ukraine was, and i mean is that, you know, the intent of maybe dropping the country s bid to join the alliance, what kind of reaction do people on the ground have to that? i think it was just the opposite. so one of his, when this country has been under a tremendous amount ofry pressure and when you re under pressure, every statement is parsed and there has never been this much attention focused on ukraine except for when zelensky watt at the center of another massive point of interest with the phone call with donald trump. and that factors into a degree, into the skeptical side, people sawic ukraine manipulated by th united rastates, for political purposes back home, and there is a skeptical community here that believes the u.s. is doing that again. but in terms of what happened with nato, one of the ambassadors, the ukraine s ambassadors said in aba bbc rad
leaders are. thereop is a community in this country, not a small one, that does believe the argument that the united states is whipping all of this up, that it is not pute within his 130,000 putin with his 130,000 troops and a massive assault,0 force, to go with them, that is surrounding this country thatth is the real threat, it is the united states that s whipping itry up. andhe they re taking their cues from russian television, and ironically taking it as well from the zelensky government which in trying to show strength is lashing out at all sides, lashing out at russia and also lashingla out at the u.s. for exposing a lot of the ntelligence, making people nervous, harming his economy, andng making him look like he s about to be invaded. which may be the case but he is hoping that it doesn t happen and he will look like he was strong throughout. i just have to ask you, richard, before we go, dlen ski maderi some news today by suggesting that joining nato, for him and his countr
0 story. great story. great reporting. thank you. that is all in on this monday night the rachel maddow show with guest host ale good evening, alex. thank you, chris. happy valentine s day, my friend. to you as well. my heart is warm. fr mine, too. and thanks to all of you at us this hour.ng it was february 2014, the autocratic pro-russian ruler of ukraine had just fled the country after being forcedle ou of officeco by pro-democracy street protests. in that confusing aftermath, soldiers began appearing in the southernld ukrainian province o crimea. theai soldiers had no identifyi insignia, and war plain green uniforms. and they came to be known as the littlee green men. some of them stormed crimea s regionalto parliament, they barricaded themselves inside and they raised the russian flag overde the building. the next day, more of these green uniformed men seized airports in crimea. within a couple of week, the whole of crimea was under the control of these little green