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Putin has to receive the message from the west that he has already done it and the response is going to be very strong and i hope that s what we see this afternoon from the white house. i want to dive into that in just one second, but as steve mentioned the nord stream 2 project, this announcement how significant this really is. how significant is it at this point? what does it mean if it s, i don t know, only a temporary halt? well, that s right. it s unclear, kate, and you re right to point that out. essentially, the bureaucratic certification for the pipeline to proceed. it s not clear that it s definitively forever and that s an important, you know, sort of asterisk to place on this that we don t go one way or the other but i have to say, vladimir putin has almost certainly already baked the assumption that this was going to happen into his decision-making. he understood that the end of nord stream 2 was a consequence of this and he understood that ....
Important for putin because he is watching very, very closely what the western reaction is going to be. he s been very clever about sort of putting his toe in the water here. he hasn t, you know, done some sort of massive move to go for kyiv right off. instead, he started off with the donbas areas in recognizing those two so-called statelets and he s watching carefully. nord stream 2, a very strong reaction and that s the kind of reaction that is called for. i think less good news out of the american administration where we are sort of kind of not being as firm as i d like to see it saying things like, well, this is the beginning of an invasion. that implies we re going to begin to start to maybe do things. putin will see that as a sign of weakness and flexibility he s got, unless of course, the president comes out this afternoon and puts on the full heart of super sanctions like taking him off swift and other things like that. ....
Reinforce. bear in mind, forces are already here. rail heads are there, road networks there, et cetera. they re moving forces into this area. donetsk, luhanz and an area that s initially not going to see much fighting. if putin says push it out, this is where the conflict will start. that s what i wanted to ask. as you mentioned, forces have been there since 2014, right? they ve been in there. ukrainian forces are also in this region. there has been fire back and forth, shelling back and forth. this has been going on. but what happens next? how much do you, would you think that russia, how much of a bite can russia take out and how much can russia hold? what do you think? they certainly could chunk off all of this. it would be rather bloody right now. and then they could hold it. i don t think that s an issue. i think what s probably going to happen is a quick movement in. obviously, all the sanctions of the world will yell and scream, ....
Vladimir putin formally recognizing two separatist regions as independent. world leaders in the face of this con demning putin s action, imposing tougher sanctions against russia and possibly more to come. let s get the very latest. sam kiley is live in eastern ukraine for us this hour. sam, keep us updated. reporter: kate, well, i m in the province of donetsk. the donetsk people s republic, so-called, and the luganz neighboring republic that the kremlin officially recognized last night in the house of representatives effectively in moscow also moved to recognize. the issue for local people now and for the wider world is whether or not that recognition for russia means that the land i m standing on right now is included in that. do they still lay claim to this area or are they going to stay behind what s called the line of ....