there were three that they know of and the hitmen apparently not giving up in their fight. mike tobin reporting live from lviv ukraine on these groups. hi, mike. hi, martha. this information comes through the reporting of the times with london. they talk about the mercenaries from the wagner group. they would be subcontractors. if they re working for the russians, it would give russians padding for deniability. the mercenaries were inserted into kyiv long before the invasion started. they were supposed to be activated and carried out the assassination. there were russians that don t support this war and they provided information to the ukrainian security apparatus and they were thwarted. a third attempt involve as chechen hit squad.
the equivalent of flying those planes ourselves against them. they could interpret us as being an aggressor based on the aid and the kind of aid and the kind of weapons that we re willing to send there, could they not? certainly they could. mr. putin is going to spin this story to fit his outcome. he has an outcome in mind. he s going to do whatever he s going to do in his fake information war to justify what he s doing. martha: yeah. it s worth pointing out that today facebook, which we had heard was banned, they have confirmed that facebook is banned in russia. anybody that prints anything that they determine to be fake news is facing up to 15 years in prison. a quick thought on that, the importance of that, general, before i let you go. we need to enter into this information war and we need to help our own people understand that mr. putin is lying and he s really good at it. if we can use our tools to get
hundreds of bombs inside. they cause extreme pain and extreme suffering to the civilians that die because of them, this is russia for you, this is the kind of war they re waging. it s very normal and human for other countries that consider them partners of democracy to be helping a civilian population in dire needs. as a mom, you have three children with you in you remember home. you say you have weapons to protect you. if this does turn into a house to house sort of insurgency combat, what are you prepared to do? look, it has turned into a house-to-house insurgency combat. the got father of my daughter still not escaped from a village to which he moved, by the way, from his downtown kyiv flat to be in safety with his family. with his children. he s trapped now because of that
in the middle of a hot war, with a nuclear armed military superpower like russia. the germans bombed london for over one year before the united states even entered world war ii. and the only way we established a no fly zone anywhere in europe in world war ii was by defeating the german army. which we could not have been done at the time without the help of the russian army which suffered more losses in world war ii than any other army. so in the oval office, in the situation room, when president biden is presented with the choice of watching the russians attack ukraine from the air. where they are meeting some resistance now from ukrainian pilots, and javelin missiles. or trying to establish a no fly zone over ukraine, everyone in the room knows that american pilots shooting down russian pilots and russian pilots shooting down american pilots. they just don t know exactly how many pilots from each country will be killed. and how quickly they will be killed. and everyone in the white ho
down. what is the reaction when they won t get an official no-fly zone from nato? they re crying out for it. we d ask what they think of the u.s. response. they wish it was more. they understand. the u.s. and nato don t want to fight the russians. they don t want it to escalate. they say give us the means to do it. give us the weapons to do it. again, that question about whether the aid and the support, the military support was coming early enough. but no, people are grateful for the solidarity. solidarity only goes so far when russian tanks and bombs are descending on you. martha: benjamin hall in kyiv. thanks very much. good to have you with us. so putin calling on his neighbors in ukraine not to exacerbate the war there, which he started.