Page 4 - Capturing Kyiv News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Previously thought, based on overnight reporting from nbc's pentagon correspondent, courtney kube, it could happen in days. according to a u.s. official, with direct knowledge of the u.s. government intelligence assessment, russia now has 70% of what it needs to achieve a full scale invasion of ukraine. and that operation could include capturing kyiv, ukrainian capital in the early days of the invasion, has a show of strength. the u.s. government predicts that russia could be at full operational capability around february 15th, which is about nine days away. the official cautions that russian ...

Seized earlier in the day. there's fighting around those airports. we don't know whether they have been taken back or not. during the hours of darkness, this would be the time that you'd expect russians to bring in air mobile or airborne reinforcements to those airports. so that's the danger period right now. and then we know there's been some russian armor movement coming down from the north, both from the northeast and the northwest of kyiv. how far it is, what's opposing it, it's not clear. those reports aren't clear to us, but that would be a reinforcement. their intent would be to encircl...

Let's talk about all of this with democratic senator jack reed, chairman of the senate armed services committee and se senator, do you think putin intends to conquer all of ukraine including the capital of kyiv? >> i think he's set upon capturing kyiv and other major cities in the eastern part of ukraine and then i think he will stop and his forces will reset and reform and then there will be a decision at that point whether they'll continue forward. i think there's a very high likelihood that he would continue forward. one reason is i think he would -- his military advisers would be uncomfort...

The fight, you don't know where the key fight is going to be and so you have to redistribute so some of that is going on right now. the main effort it seems to me, first of all, why are they coming in from so many directions? well, as the colonel said, of course he wants to take as much as he can, but also because it really complicates the command and control issues for the ukrainian staff. you get good information, you get bad information, you get no information. you don't know what's happening. and it's overwhelming when that information flow starts, so they know this. so i think the main ob...

Material? >> well, yes, i'm concerned. there are other power plants, nuclear power plants in kyiv also, more than a dozen. so they're all significant risks. chernobyl was on the approach into kyiv so i think they went through that area. they thought they could go through it, it would be relatively unprotected. this is the way the nazis invaded france and belgium in 1940. find the forest, go through the forest, nobody sees you. get on the road, go as fast as you can. so i think that's some of what the russians have tried to do here. i don't think they're going to try to make a mess because some...