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>> joining us now in kyiv, cnn senior internal correspondent matthew chance. can you just explain where you were, what was going on there? >> yeah, it was a very unexpected and really quite astonishing encounter because what it was is we were headed out to an air base that we were told there had been clashes between russia forces and ukrainian forces, russian forces flew in there to seize the air head so they could bring in more supplies or more troops. but we were told my ukrainian officials that the airstrip had been taken back by ukrainian forces. so, we got to the gates of the place, the c...

Are doing is they're increasing their presence with belarusian forces coming down into the fight. as you indicated, those forces are fresh and they've also been in training exercises with the russians over the course of the last couple of weeks. that means that they're coming into the fight and they'll come in, probably as you just drew there, john, from the west side. they don't want to try to separate the forces with the dnieper river. the belarusians will come in, try to reinforce the air head outside of kyiv to the north and west and start to bring forces into kyiv. when they get into kyiv...

From kyiv, not long ago, it does seem that the capital city of ukraine is, you know, under threat of being captured. i'm wondering how tangible the threat is and what you're hearing on the ground. >> the yeah. it's in jeopardy, obviously. in terms behalf i'm hearing now, it's quiet. you look out and the expanse of the ukrainian capital behind me. it seems very calm. there's nobody on the streets. you can't hear jets in the sky and you can't hear the thundering air strikes we witnessed 24-hours ago. i know for a fact, 15 miles away, there's an air base which has been taken over by russian speci...

Location. we understand there are several contingents of russian airborne special forces deployed in key areas around the ukrainian capital. securing an air head. so an airborne bridge. supplies and troops and armor can be potentially flown in. only one reason you'd want to do that, of course, which is to expand your footprint in the ukrainian capital, possibly take it over. i've spoken to ukrainian officials about this and they now say they are convinced that the russian strategy is to invade kyiv, to take kyiv, the ukrainian capital and replace the ukrainian political leadership. that's what...