0 to see this entirely different set of arguments played around the same set of facts in this case. thank you for covering it, and thank you for being with us for the hour. chuck will be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." katy tur has more news now. >> in a facebook post, february 16th, we were told will be the day of the attack, and we will make it a day of unity. we will hang national flags, wear blue and yellow ribbons and show our unity. again, this is from president zelensky, the president of ukraine in a facebook post to ukrainens, telling them that february 16th will be the day of the attack. good to be with you. i am katy tur. today the diplomatic efforts to avoid a conflict are being led by germany's new chancellor who will meet with vladimir putin in moscow tomorrow. even as the negotiations continue, more than a dozen countries are urging their citizens to leave ukraine as soon as possible, including the u.s., israel, britain and australia. only france has yet to withdraw its citizens, perhaps a sign the french government does believe there's still a way to avoid military action. we will see if that is changing now that president zelensky made that announcement to his people. satellite shows a huge russian presence around ukraine, and tank regiments along the north and west. pentagon press secretary will hold a briefing at the pentagon this hour, and says american intelligence suggested the buildup of russian troops is only growing. >> just over the course of the weekend he added more force and capability to the border of ukraine and belarus and the maritime readiness he established in the black sea and elsewhere and in the med as well. this is a military that continues to grow stronger, and continues to grow more ready, and we believe he has a lot of capabilities and options available to him should he want to use military force. as we said, it could happen any day. i would go so far as to say we could see him move with little to no warning. >> again, a lot of fluid and a lot is changing right now. stay with us. president biden did speak with president zelensky yesterday, and president biden promising the u.s. and its allies would respond to any russian invasion swiftly and precisely, and those were president biden's words, and with what president president zelensky just announced, it's hard to believe that biden would travel there. also today, ukraine walked back talk of a massive concession to russian after the ambassador to britain suggested ukraine could drop it's desire to join nato. joining me now is erin mclaughlin in kyiv, and courtney kube at the pentagon, and msnbc political analyst, peter baker. this news breaking a moment ago from president zelensky in his facebook post. what are you hearing there? >> in that facebook post, katy, president zelensky saying that his government has been told that february 16th will be the day of a possible attack. that is in just two days' time, and he is calling on ukrainians to raise the flag and use yellow and blue ribbons in a show of solidarity for ukraine. we also heard tonight from the head of ukraine's national police saying that police throughout the country will be on a heightened state of alert until february 19th. there will be an increased police presence guarding critical infrastructure and monuments here in a heightened state of alertness. and we heard president zelensky calling on all of the oligarchs that have flown on private jets and left ukraine to return to the country in the next 24 hours saying that he and his family both intend to remain here in kyiv. i have been speaking to ukrainians that say they are extraordinary concerned about the situation, and they have been for sometime but they have taken the western intelligence assessments extremely seriously and they are preparing for the worst, and i was speaking to one woman earlier today and she said she is making plans to send her 11-year-old daughter to the western portion of the country in the event of a escalation, and she said she plans to stay to defend ukraine. speaking to so many ukrainians here, they tell me they realize the value of their freedom and have been fighting for that freedom in the past eight years in the face of russian aggression, and they realize what is at stake and want to defend their country. >> i saw a reporter talking to a grandmother today who was wanting to defend her country. and looking at the u.s.' intelligence and pairing it with what president zelensky said, what do we know? >> the one thing we should be listening for is not so much that russia continues to build up the forces around ukraine, it's more about the capability they are bringing in in the last few days, and that's what has u.s. officials and the officials i'm speaking with really concerned, the capabilities they are bringing in. one of the things that has a lot of defense officials worried right now is the naval presence. they have these russian military ships in the black sea, many of them have cruise missiles on them and they are uncontested down there as well and they have the ability to hold much of eastern ukraine and the central part of the country with the missiles, the land attack cruise missiles. so into the eastern side of ukraine, on the eastern border there, they have the ability as john kirby said earlier today on msnbc to attack very quickly with very little notice and in a very destructive manner. as evidence of that you mentioned the u.s. state department has been telling americans that they have to leave. just only moments ago we heard from the state department, a statement from secretary blinken, they are in the process of relocating embassy operations to ukraine to the western city of kyiv that we just heard from erin about, and it's due to the dramatic acceleration in the buildup of russian forces. that's what really has the u.s. on edge here, not just that russia continues to flow in forces but the capabilities and numbers of russian forces that moved around ukraine in the recent days has really, really accelerated. there's a real concern they could move in with little or no notice, katy? >> according to anthony blinken, the secretary of state, they are moving. you have decent insight buy what could be happening considering vladimir putin has been so isolated and under the radar during most of the buildup here. what are you watching out for? >> yeah, first of all, that statement from president zelensky is significant, not because of what it says but because of who said it, and up until now president zelensky has taken -- well, saying that the americans are alarmists and now he accepted the american warnings, and the date he mentioned is the date americans have been suggesting they move, and he now at this point accepted the reality what the american intelligence agencies have been talking about for weeks, and now you heard from sergey lavrov, there's time for diplomacy, and we still think there's more opportunity for talks here and president putin responds good, as if that's his goal. a lot of people watching are skeptical and believe that's just a way of damping down preparations on this side while they get their operational forces ready to go and there doesn't seem to be a lot of room for diplomacy, unless vladimir putin decide to back down. there's no magic key the americans or europeans could offer putin. >> why is vladimir putin not -- he doesn't seem to be reacting to the threat of sanctions, peter. he doesn't even seem to be acting to the americans saying we're going to take the north line off-line. that would be a blow. >> yeah, he already factored in what the west's response would be. he knew this is what the united states and europe would threaten, they would be cut off from the banking, he already knew that going in and he decided to do this anyway. he decided that's not enough to detour him. i don't think the west has come up with anything that surprised him so far except perhaps for the technique that my colleagues wrote about the other day, exposing in advance the fake pretext they like to use by exposing the false flag operations, i think that's the best way the west has had of trying to expose what a manufactured crisis this is to begin with, and they can't pretend there was a provocation on the part of the ukrainians. >> yeah, glad you brought that up. the u.s. intelligence has been warning about that for a couple weeks, and during friday with the eye opening appearance of the secretary at the press briefing. >> in advance of a kinetic or military movement into ukraine by russia, one thing is cyberattacks. that could occur in ukraine. we could see it in different ways, like the internet stopped working. it could be something like critical infrastructure, like the lights go out or what the military calls electronic warfare or jamming, they could gum things up and stop critical infrastructure and things from working, and beyond that there's more intelligence according to officials that russia could be looking at a false flag and that could be a protest drummed up in some random part of the country, and it could be against the government, and as part of that there could be reports of russian-speaking citizens being injured or worse as part of this. the kinds of things that may go viral on social media, and there's a potential of a false flag that could be deadly. we heard about going after infrastructure, bridges and river crossings, so there's specific intelligence that the u.s. is getting in, and we're getting only the vague outlines of what that might look like, but i will say over the weekend i heard more and more about how there's concern that one of those false flags could start early this week, katy. >> let's bring in former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, william taylor to this conversation. everybody stay with us. the announcement of president zelensky speaking to his people, saying on february 16th, two days from now, he's told that will be the invasion day. what is your reaction? >> katy, my sense is president putin has not yet decided. we have this information apparently about wednesday, about the 16th, but what he has, what president putin has is the capability, as all your reporters just described, he has great capability and could a lot of damage, and he could plant false flags for a provocation, and it's not clear that he made this decision yet. president putin has that capability, but president zelensky is preparing his people, the ukrainians to be prepared for whatever comes. he wants them to be resolute and wants them to be calm and doesn't want to see panic, but he does want them to be prepared. the preparations that the forces have gone through, they are ready. they are clearly ready. they are not able to withstand a big attack from the russians, but the ukrainians -- they will fight and it will be -- if vladimir putin makes this decision, it will be bloody for russians. the one thing that might detour him is the prospect of russian soldiers coming back to russian towns and villages across the country across russia to be buried. this could be destabilizing for his regime, and he has that concern as well as all the sanctions and the militaries he's facing. >> we are waiting for the pentagon to hold a press briefing. that's what you see on the left side of your screen. let's talk about why vladimir putin would want to move into ukraine. and speaking to the press, one said americans should care about this because this could be a realignment of power. i am hoping you could explain that. >> katy, this would be a major change, a major event in european security, if president putin is able to get away with invading his neighbor, a sovereign country, that everybody recognizes with the exception of maybe putin, that ukraine is a sovereign nation and has rights, and if this nation can be violated, then that destroys any hope for an order that would keep the peace in europe. that's what we are talking about. we're talking about security in europe and ukraine happens to be on the front line. if russians can invade and control ukraine, if russians could reabsorbed ukraine into an empire again, then that border is challenged and may never return. >> courtney, you and i have been having the conversation about how american is responding by posting troops in our nato allied countries saying we are there for nato defense. is there any concern that ukraine is just the first step? >> i think that's the longer term concern that we are hearing about. you hear people in this building talk about how this could potentially change european security for decades to come and change the world order. if vladimir putin is able to redraw borders with the invasion of ukraine, that's a real possibility. i know european officials in eastern europe particularly, they know that today it's ukraine, and what about in ten years move into border, and what about estonia, and as he continues, vladimir putin, or whoever his successor might be, they could continue to push russia further and further out and take some of this land over time, not necessarily in 2022, but over time. vladimir putin and the russian people are looking at how the world responds to this as a way to move forward. again, nothing happens in a vacuum, right? it's not just putin watching this, and it could be president xi in china in response to taiwan. it may not have direct national security implications, but here in the united states it could have a larger world implication in years to come, katy. >> let's talk about the moment in time this is happening, could it be vladimir putin sees the west as not as strong as it once was and not as united as it was once, and america not in the same position around the world as it once was? >> yeah, i think there's something to that, and maybe he miscalculated, but you are right, starting with president obama and president trump and now biden wanted to pull back from the american militarism, and that could have emboldened people in america to pull back, and we have new leadership in germany, and angela merkel is out, and schultz is in, and macron is facing an election, and we have boris johnson in trouble in the uk. there might have been a feeling in the part of the kremlin this could be an opportunity to drive a wedge in the west, and as much as we have differences of opinion with germany and france on how to handle this threat broadly speaking, the united states and europe have been pretty united on that. if the goal of putin was to -- now he's giving everybody a reason to reconsolidate and renew the mission and purpose of nato that you would have thought moscow would not have wanted. >> i want to bring in white house correspondent, mike memoli. are we getting any reaction from the white house. obviously over the last few days, the president has been making clear to american citizens, and now tony blinken in a statement saying we are in the process of temporarily rolo indicating our services out of kyiv -- i apologize for my mispronunciation of that city. they are relocating the u.s. embassy far to the west, and it's because of the dramatic acceleration in the buildup of russian forces. so when you combine the dire warnings escalating over the last few days about the threat of an invasion to now removing what was left of our embassy presence out of kyiv further west to obviously a safer position, and it's an illustration of a concerned level at the highest levels of the government. >> we are approaching if we are not already at a peak, and the u.s. government already called it a crescendo. if this is a way for vladimir putin to exert the most leverage against the west, what is he trying to get here. what does he ultimately want? >> what he ultimately wants is ukraine in the first instance. but as courtney said, he will not stop there if he achieves that. he wants ukraine, and he doesn't want to invade, i bet. i bet he wants this big deployment to intimidate president zelensky and try to intimidate president biden. so far he has not been able to succeed. peter baker is right, i bet putin is surprised about how united the alliance is and how strong president zelensky has been in standing up to putin, so i think that's probably something putin did not expect. >> on friday the national security adviser, jake sullivan, was talking about what could happen and the terms he used were, frankly, quite scary, that the russians could bomb and they could invade and he was imploring all american citizens to get out and now we hear the embassy is being relocated. what do we have to learn in the next few days about what might happen here? >> one thing that seems very clear is the u.s. government does not want to send u.s. military into ukraine for any evacuation of american citizens, and that's why we are seeing so much urging, president biden, blinken and sullivan all urging americans to get out while commercial travel is still available. and kyiv is offering options, and we are hearing about the city in western ukraine near the polish border, the embassy staff are going to move there, and there will be most likely ground roots out of ukraine through the western part of the country into poland. that's one place where we may see u.s. military presence. they may be helping out if necessary at checkpoints, and they will do things like logistical support. they may provide food, shelter, probably tents, not anything too fancy, and that's one thing where we may see the military, but one thing is certain, this administration, the biden administration has made it clear they do not want to send troops in for any noncombatant evacuation, and that's why we will hear the administration urging americans to get out because of any invasion. >> and our nbc teams are still there. tell us about how you are going to be keeping yourself safe if this happens? >> well, we're obviously going to be monitoring the situation very closely, katy. you know, we have sort of our own plans in place in case of the worst, but ukrainian military experts that i have been talking to say they still say kyiv as a potential target being extremely unlikely given the state of readiness that this city is in, given the resolve of the ukrainian military and the number of troops that russia currently has in belarus, simply 30,000, and that's not enough to take kyiv, and they are bracing this area of the country for hybrid warfare and disinformation which we heard from ukrainian intelligence, earlier today they said they have seen an unprecedented amount of misinformation, urging people to check their sources and to really vet the information they are getting and question it. that alert went out this morning from ukrainian intelligence. in terms of kyiv itself, it is seen as unlikely target, and the ukrainian military sees something in the east as being an unlikely scenario, katy. >> yeah, people in the east have been dealing with something like this for years, erin, for eight years in the separatist conflict, and i know you have seen them up close and what they have been living through and it's not good, it's bleak. in kyiv, though, it's been striking for me to see the scenes where live seems to be completely normal, or feels normal. i know people are preparing for what could come. are they in full understanding of what could come, though? >> i think so. so many ukrainians that i have spoken to have told me they have been living with russian aggression for the past eight years, to the point where they have almost grown accustomed to attacks from russia, where that is that disinformation or attacks in the east. they know what is at stake here. remember, what happened eight years ago here in kyiv, a lot of ukrainians see themselves as having fought for this freedom. for example, i was speaking to a 17-year-old just outside kyiv a couple weekends ago and i asked him -- he was at a military class, and i asked if he would