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Way point before it turns north and arrives in the arctic. over the last few days the polar pioneer, as it traveled across the pacific ocean has had some company on the open sea. there's a greenpeace ship called "the esparanza" that has been following it 5,000 miles now. they started in malaysia. the greenpeace folks have been tweeting pictures of the rig as they have been following it and putting up photos and messages showing themselves the greenpeace crew gearing up for something. they posted this video to you tube without explanation. it shows six crew members from six different countries ...

Security here. on that secretary i'm going to go to jim cavanaugh who is back with us. he's one offer nbc news, msnbc analysts with a particular focus on terrorism and experience in that area as a former atf special agent. mr. cavanaugh, tell us, what do you think this tells us about the ability of international -- individuals traveling an commercial flights to traverse this region going forward? are people correctly going to be more reluctant to take these routine flights that pass over this volatile air space? >> that's a great point. these conflict areas, you know, separatists, insurgents a...

Solid basis that we have to go on, who is available for this type of an attack. nina, we have been discussing the various possibilities. if this was separatist, what would they have to gain. we're not saying that's the case but that's the subtext of the ukrainian officials. >> ukrainian officials are saying that the russians have the capabilities to do that. whether it's the russian separatists is irrelevant at this point. of course, the russians or ukrainian separatists would say it's ukrainians because they are the ones flying the jets over the territory. that's another point.

Call with vladimir putin. that was predominantly to discuss the latest sanctions on russia. but it appears they also discussed this situation. are you hearing anything on what if any, action the united states is going to take to assist in the response to this? >> we do know that president obama has directed his national security team to be in direct and immediate contact with senior officials in ukraine. that is as far as the white house will go at this point. but i would anticipate that as a part of those conversations, the white house is offering any assistance that it can provide as ukraini...

But i think russia has nothing to gain from that, if it is done purposely. >> we're down to the benefit of anyone in the region. we all agree on that. we have andrea mitchell here with an update on that as well. andrea, have we gotten to you at this point? >> yes, indeed. the state department has been briefing at this hour. they have no information as to whether this was an accident, a shoot-down. they don't know. they are investigating. the intelligent officials are going to be briefing the senate intelligence committee. dianne feinstein scheduled a briefing. this is obviously top of mind. jo...