good monday morning i'm joe fryer and
i'm savannah sellers we begin with
breaking news on the war in ukraine this
morning russia announcing a temporary
ceasefire and claiming they will allow
people to flee the country following 11
days of heavy shelling russia's defense
ministry claims its troops will hold
fire and open humanitarian corridors in
several major cities but similar
announcements in recent days did not
hold also some routes being offered only
lead to russia
or its close ally belarus ukraine's vice
prime minister calling the offer
unacceptable and immoral and asking
russia to evacuate people through
western ukraine instead this as the
humanitarian crisis worsens in and
around ukraine the un says so far one
and a half million people have already
fled the country with many more still
looking for a way out
we are simple working the right people
we cannot get it why this is happening
today a third round of talks is set to
take place in belarus well this morning
ukrainian president vladimir zelinsky
makes a new plea for stronger sanctions
against russia and for nato to impose a
no-fly zone over ukraine
in ukraine we always wanted peace how
many more deaths
need to happen
the impacts of the war now being felt
here at home as gas prices across the
u.s soar to the highest levels in
decades we have team coverage this
morning with national security expert
jason beardsley nbc news correspondent
ellison barber at a refugee center in
poland and nbc news 4 correspondent
molly hunter in la vie which is in
western ukraine mali we're going to
start with you this morning russia
announced the cease-fire and the opening
of these humanitarian corridors from
several ukrainian cities but we
understand some of these corridors only
lead to russia or to belarus do we know
if this ceasefire is being observed and
what does the ukrainian government make
of some of these corridor routes
yeah joe that's right ceasefires by
definition are not unilateral so the
russian ministry of defense this morning
announced that they were offering these
humanitarian corridors only going to
belarus and russia now in the next
couple of hours we didn't hear much from
the ukrainians or the icrc the neutral
body on the ground which is facilitating
and brokering those ceasefires and then
the vice prime minister of ukraine said
absolutely no way this is unacceptable
we are not sending our civilians who
have been under russian bombardment into
russia and ukraine now our understanding
at this hour joe is that the ukrainians
have countered they have
sent proposals back to the russian side
with humanitarian quarters heading to
the west of the country where i am
worth noting though of course over the
weekend there were two apparently agreed
ceasefires in the southeastern city of
mariopol both broke down within hours
because of russian challenge i'll send
it back to you let's talk more about
mario paul we saw multiple attempted
cease-fire attempts there over the
weekend ukraine has accused russia of
targeting civilians russia denies that
tell us more about what happened there
and what is the situation like there on
the ground right now
right so we've been talking to the icrc
over the weekend because their teams are
on the ground in mariopol they started
both saturday morning and sunday morning
by starting to open up those
humanitarian corridors their
understanding was that locations had
been agreed for civilians to depart out
of the city but they say that completely
broke down that the two sides hadn't
actually decided on the exact route
hadn't actually decided on the exact
departure points and they said their
team was out there when the fighting
when the shelling resumed in order for a
ceasefire to be effective both sides
have to be on the same side they have to
agree exactly the root joe they have to
agree exactly who gets to be evacuated
they also have to agree if humanitarian
aid gets to come in and in addition to
mariopol we also saw evacuations in a
northeastern suburb of kiev it's called
urban we saw some very um distressing
video over the weekend on saturday the
red cross says three thousand people got
out of that suburb well they tried to do
the same on sunday but russian forces
shelled the exact location that they
knew civilians were going to be
evacuated from joe so many stunning
images we're seeing right now on the
screen molly of people just trying to
flee their towns as quickly as they can
with whatever they can grab begs the
question what's happening with peace
talks ukrainian leaders say another
round of peace talks with russia could
come as early as today these
humanitarian corridors we've discussed
did come out of the last round of
negotiations we know expectations are
low with these talks but what should we
expect for this latest round molly
yeah so our understanding right now joe
is that there are going to be a peace
talks starting at four o'clock local so
in about two hours uh same delegation
apparently but i gotta say coming out of
a weekend
which did not result in the cease-fires
that had been advertised i'm not sure
how much optimism we are going into
today's peace talks with but we will
absolutely keep you posted all right
molly hunter in la vie mali thank you so
much
we're also covering the humanitarian
crisis unfolding in europe this morning
the u.n estimates more than a million
and a half ukrainians have already left
the country since the russian invasion
began with a temporary ceasefire in
place and those humanitarian corridors
opening up for civilians that number is
expected to climb nearly 900 000
refugees have fled to poland alone so
far over the weekend secretary of state
anthony blinken visited a welcome center
on the polish ukraine border he met with
the ukrainian foreign minister and heard
stories from displaced families nbc news
correspondent ellison barber joins us
now from that welcome center hey ellison
good morning so secretary blinken is the
highest ranking american diplomat to
visit the region since this war began
tell us a little bit about what he saw
on his visit to that welcome center that
i know you've been spending time at as
well
yeah well one of the things he probably
would have immediately heard is stories
like we have heard stories of families
surviving of making it here but then
trying to figure out where they go next
i want you to listen to what we heard
from one woman she is in her 60s she
fled from eastern ukraine her home her
community heavily under attack she made
it here completely alone and was trying
to figure out where to go next listen to
what she told us
i want the world to know
that
residential areas they're simply bombing
the
houses
huge places huge residential areas there
are no more houses because they're
bombed
near
it's not because i love things but it's
just
this is 68 years of my life in this
match
one two three
so
savannah we've been to six different
border crossings six different refugee
welcome centers this is by far the
largest and one of the most organized
you can see people lining up here
there's a lot of volunteer efforts food
that way you see all of these buses what
happens here is people come from where
they crossed on the border they're able
to go inside
sit sleep on a cot for a little while
get medical attention if needed get food
there are some people from different
embassies inside trying to help then
these buses someone will call out over
an intercom where they're going either
other cities in poland or sometimes as
far away as germany or czech republic
people then line up they board that bus
and they make their way to their next
destination when we first started
reporting on this and talking to
refugees a lot of them were coming to
stay with family and friends they
already had in poland now we're meeting
a lot of people like that woman who they
don't know anyone in this country they
just knew they had to get somewhere safe
so they came here and they're really
trying to figure out next steps minute
by minute savannah and it's been just so
incredible to see the people of poland
the people of all these neighboring
countries help them make those decisions
get them places open up their homes i
mean it's just pretty incredible alison
we mentioned that temporary ceasefire
that's supposedly in effect now as we
also mentioned a lot of those routes are
to russia to belarus but are you hearing
from anyone there in that camp about
that
providing any relief or peace of mind
are they getting that news and does that
make them feel any better about family
or friends still in the country trying
to get out
you know we
talked to someone yesterday who said
she'd been talking to friends who lived
in some of those areas where there were
supposed to be these humanitarian
corridors green zones and she said what
she was hearing from her friend's family
what she'd seen in her journey she said
it lasted maybe 50 minutes and then
nothing that it was back to how things
were before it is incredibly difficult
for people particularly coming from
eastern ukraine to get somewhere safe we
hear stories of it taking hours days for
people to get across stops along the way
in bomb shelters and then finally
getting to poland and having their first
little bit of relief
moment of feeling safe for many people
in in the first time in in 10 dates
savannah alison barber thank you so much
amazing reporting coming from you out of
poland
let's bring in national security expert
jason beardsley he's the national
executive director for the association
of the u.s navy jason good to have you
with us so secretary of state anthony
blinken says he believes accusations
that russia is committing war crimes in
ukraine let's take a listen
we've seen very credible reports
of deliberate attacks on civilians which
would constitute a war crime uh we've
seen very credible reports about the the
use of certain weapons
so he's echoing what we're actually
hearing from ukrainians first hand if
the u.s believes the reports are
credible what should the u.s do about it
what are the options
well this is a pretty tough place that
the united states has gotten itself into
because we've said very vociferously we
are not putting troops into contact and
we're not going to enforce a no-fly zone
the most you've seen from the white
house and this has been a consistent
message is that we may supply some
lethal munitions or we may help in the
humanitarian cause but even once they
come to the conclusion that there may be
war crimes committed the state
department doesn't
have much wiggle room based on what the
white house has been saying to do more
than what they've already done sanctions
uh different things but here's where
they can start we can start by stopping
the purchase of russian oil that's going
on every day and feeling what the
russians are doing on the ground that'd
be the first move that i would look for
here's something else happening that's
sort of intriguing the u.s is exploring
how to send soviet-era fighter jets to
ukraine help us understand what's the
strategy behind this why not just send
more modern american jets
uh well this is a sort of an indirect
sort of support so poland is offered to
place uh russian air or soviet-era
migs in the hands of ukrainians uh what
they would look for is united states to
guarantee backfilling those aircraft
with uh f-16s or something more modern
for the united states arsenal that's a
pretty good deal uh even though they're
soviet era we're still flying soviet era
airplanes as well so if we can get
equipment lethal means especially for
air reinforcement to the ukrainians
they've been pretty good at air defense
on their own they just need the gear and
the equipment doesn't matter that it's a
little bit old they need to take control
of their skies if we're not going to do
it the weaving the united nations or
nato the latest we've heard of the
situation there a senior u.s military
official says about 95 of the combat
power that russia had initially lined up
along the border for all those weeks has
now been moved into ukraine we know this
invasion is taking longer than russia
planned but how much longer do you think
ukraine can continue to hold out and
fight
well ukraine can hold out for quite a
long time we saw that in iraq and
afghanistan with overwhelming superior
numbers forces equipment logistics the
united states was bogged down for 20
years both in baghdad and kabul and as
you could see the the harassment the
interdiction the guerrilla warfare
insurrection can go on for decades what
the russians did was gambled that this
would be a quick strike they would get
in there and cause the government to
flee
install a pro-putin government that did
not happen now they're stretched out
they have to supply every one of those
tanks with fuel they have to supply the
troops with food medical aid that gets
difficult especially in the interior
portions so that's why you're seeing a
lot more successes in the east which was
already sort of under nominal soviet
russian control uh the donbass region
and in the south where they can supply
from crimea and from the ocean that's
another thing the united states can do
is patrolling the high seas uh outside
the dardanelle straits in turkey and in
the black sea we've got american vessels
that are steaming from the med that
direction and that's a good way to put
pressure on putin all right jason
beardsley thanks so much for your
analysis appreciate it now the ongoing
invasion of ukraine was the main topic
on sunday's meet the press secretary of
state anthony blinken joined to discuss
the next steps in the u.s response and
west virginia senator joe manchin said
nothing is off the table when it comes
to war moderator chuck todd has more in
this week's meet the press compressed
let's start with planes
it seems that we're close this idea of
essentially u.s fighter jets to poland
in exchange poland since russia
russian-made jets to ukraine is that
going to happen uh and how quickly can
it happen we're uh
talking very actively
about this looking at what we could do
to backfill poland if it chooses to send
the migs and the sioux planes that it
has
to ukraine how we can help by
backfilling what they're giving to to uh
to the ukrainians so that's in very
active discussion as we speak would you
support a no-fly zone would you support
doing this which could trigger a wi-fi i
understand that but right now you don't
signal to your to the nemesis of putin
this is a putin's war this is not the
russian people's war this is putin's war
and his quest for whatever it may be
but to take anything off the table
thinking we might not be able to use
things because we've already taken them
off the tables wrong i would take
nothing off the table well one could
argue that there's been 20 years of
appeasing putin
that there was this belief that he could
be part of the world order was that a
mistake from the get-go no i've always
said that you cannot trust russia you
cannot trust putin you can't trust xi
you can't trust china this is it's
common sense i dealt with them at the
united nations you never
negotiate you never deal with your
enemies you can't trust them i was
mortified that biden went so far as
asking china for help with russia i mean
you never ask an enemy for help with
another enemy logistically how doable is
this and and why are so many folks in
the united states adamant about not even
attempting it let me start with the back
end because i think it's really the
important question it's it's quite
obvious that if we put u.s nato jets in
the air enforcing a no-fly zone they'll
be going nose to nose with russian
fighter aircraft
down that path the potential for
miscalculation
in a war between nato and russia and a
war between russia and the united states
rises significantly look i implemented a
no-fly zone i know how to do this i did
it in libya in 2011. can we do it sure
should we not yet but final point chuck
what we ought to do is give the
ukrainians the ability to create a
no-fly zone more stingers more missiles
that can go higher than stingers and
above all
consummate this fighter deal get those
mig-29s in their hands
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