Summary
As Biden meets with NATO allies, the U.S. announces new sanctions against Russia and plans to welcome up to 100k Ukrainian refugees. Zelenskyy accuses Russia of using phosphorus bombs as fears grow that Putin may use chemical weapons. Ukraine says it has destroyed a Russian naval ship as the war enters its second month.
Transcript
STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, one month of war, President Biden in Brussels with NATO allies warning if chemical weapons are deployed, the West will respond. The evidence of widespread destruction grows images of Ukraine attacking a Russian warship and the city of Mariupol flattened by Putin`s military.
Plus, the stunning new reporting tonight, texts between Justice Clarence Thomas`s wife and Mark Meadows. She was pushing to overturn the election, while Trump vowed to take his fight to the Supreme Court, as the 11th Hour gets underway on this Thursday night.
Good evening, once again, I`m Stephanie Ruhle. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is entering its 30th day marking the beginning of a second month of war.
Today, as Russia continued attacking Ukraine cities and Ukrainian forces fought back, President Biden was at an emergency summit in Brussels meeting with members of NATO, the European Union and the G7.
Ukraine`s President Zelenskyy spoke to the NATO allies virtually warning the Alliance still isn`t doing enough to help. He also accused Russia of using devastating phosphorus bombs, a troubling accusation the U.S. has yet to confirm.
The accusation as to the growing fear that Vladimir Putin may turn to chemical or biological weapons in his struggle to take over Ukraine. Today, Biden and U.S. allies warned that would not go unanswered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: We would respond, we will respond if he uses it. The nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Also, today more promises of additional humanitarian and military aid for Ukraine, and yet another round of sanctions against Russia. But as one reporter pointed out to the president, those economic hits have yet to deter Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I did not say that, In fact, the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter. The maintenance of sanctions, the maintenance of sanctions, the increasing the pain. That`s what will stop him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: The President is traveling to Poland tomorrow, that country has taken in more than 3.6 million refugees who have fled Ukraine so far. Most of them. Today, the U.S. agreed to accept 100,000 refugees. NBC`s Richard Engel has more on the situation and situation they`re leaving behind.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
RICHARD ENGEL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Russia has by now all but flattened Mariupol. New images released by officials in Mariupol show the ones thriving port city has been devastated by Russian bombs.
Ukrainian officials say 100,000 people remain in Mariupol and they`re cut off without food or water.
U.S. Military officials say Russia is now concentrating its assault on the east of Ukraine around Mariupol close to the Russian border. Russia has begun to resupply its troop there.
Russian television showing the arrival of a landing ship in a port on the Sea of Azov with fighting vehicles unloaded and readied for battle. Today, Russia`s plans took a turn.
The ship was in flames. Ukrainian forces claim they destroyed it this morning and damage to other Russian vessels.
Russia`s new focus on the east may be out of duress. Ukrainian forces are making advances around Kyiv pushing back Russian troops from the Capitol. But Russia`s air bombardment hasn`t stopped.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
RUHLE: Our thanks to Richard Engel. There`s also important news tonight here at home. A stunning new development in the January 6 investigation involving the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. A source tells NBC News the January 6 Committee has several text messages between Jenny Thomas and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about keeping Donald Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election. We`ll be getting deeper into that later in the hour.
But first, let`s turn to NBC`s Cal Perry back with us from the Lviv. Cal, what are you hearing there about how Ukrainian forces are doing because we`re hearing about all these reports. They`re not just pushing back. They`re pushing back with a lot of success.
CAL PERRY, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and punching through some of these Russian lines like the front lines are now static across this country, especially in the east with the exception of what`s going on in the western part of the capital. Ukrainian forces moving the Russian forces we understand back some 30 miles and in places as I said, breaking through them and out flanking them.
The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense saying it`s quite possible that these forces that you`re seeing on your screen are going to encircle Russian soldiers take a high number of POWs and inflict of course a lot of casualties.
[23:05:04]
The number of casualties, while we don`t have an exact number, we know is incredibly high. NATO says somewhere between 7,000, and 14,000 Russian troops already dead in just one month of war.
The Ukrainian government is saying a lot of that credit goes to the supply lines. The supply chain here has stayed up and running. It`s one of the most impressive things about this war against Russia.
We had a chance this morning to talk to some folks who are bringing in supplies from Lithuania. This is some of the most sensitive military equipment that you have a little bit more on the stuff they`re bringing across. Take a listen, Stephanie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOANS OHMAN, LEADER BLLUE YELLOW GROUP: There will be lots of fighting in cities, we have urban fighting. The optics, we have various high end rifle scopes.
PERRY: So they`re specifically asking for this?
OHMAN: Yes, that`s correct. Thermal vision is when you have the heat signature of so you can see something that is hotter in surrounding, it works very well at night. We have provided hundreds of these, this moment, to all kinds of units.
PERRY: How many trucks did you bring over?
OHMAN: This time two trucks, mainly with body armor and helmets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERRY: Now, one month ago, as this war was starting, Vladimir Putin said any NATO nation that lends support directly to Ukraine will face the possibility of Russian retaliation. And so you have this game going on, Stephanie, this shell game where are these countries. Lithuania, for example, using middlemen, using these groups to get these supplies to the front.
Again, this is how Ukraine at the beginning was able to slow and stop the Russian advancement. And today, it seems like they`re actually pushing back those Russian troops, Stephanie.
RUHLE: Cal, you talk to people on the street every day. Has there been any reaction to the NATO Summit and President Zelenskyy`s speech to the U.S. and our allies?
PERRY: The reaction was that again, folks here want this no-fly zone. When you look at the pictures from the eastern part of the country, it`s devastation. Mariupol has been wiped off the map. There are civilians still trapped in basements. The hospitals can`t function. You now have word from the Ukrainian government that people are being forced to move to Russia. The government here calls that abductions and deportations.
It is that situation that has people here crying out for that no-fly zone, and for more jets, NATO for their party saying that`s just not going to be possible. They do not want to see this wideness they say into World War III, Stephanie.
RUHLE: Cal Perry, thank you for joining us at this very early hour in Lviv.
And now let`s bring in our experts here at home. Eugene Daniels. White House correspondent for Politico, retired four star Army General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of Vietnam, and he former battlefield commander in the Persian Gulf and Julia Friedlander, she was a senior policy advisor for Europe in the office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury Department. Now she`s a C. Boyden Gray, Senior Fellow and Director for The Atlantic Council.
General, I`m so glad you`re here. I want to dig in with you first. We are now one month into this war. How critical was today`s emergency NATO Summit?
GEN. BARRY MCCAFFREY, MSNBC MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think it was absolutely magnificent success on a part of both President Biden and his team. It was not just NATO. It was also the European Council, it was also the G7. He`ll go on to demonstrate our concern for the frontline states of Eastern Europe, Poland, specifically, who have taken in these millions of refugees are actually also the conduit to get these vitally needed military, smart munitions and humanitarian aid into Ukraine.
So, you know, I could not be more optimistic about the way NATO is responding. They have slightly waffled on the notion of chemical weapons. It seems to me there should have been a definitive public statement. These would be catastrophic if used against civil populations. The notion you can send early detection kits to 44 million Ukrainian sounds like nonsense to me.
To defeat chemical weapons, you need protective suits, protective maps, treatment systems, early warning, medical treatment, none of which is really possible in the short run. But all in all a great day for NATO. And hopefully, we will see continued major escalation of our support for Ukraine, specifically, anti-air systems and anti-ship missiles.
RUHLE: But if what you just laid out for what we should do if chemical weapons are deployed, if none of that is possible in the short run, what should we do?
MCCAFFREY: I think we tell them privately at the highest levels. If chemical weapons are used against defenseless civilians, they would cause absolutely catastrophic casualties, children, old people, you name it, and that we would enter the war on the part of Ukraine if this happened, that ought to be a private but explicit message.
[23:10:02]
RUHLE: And General, I want to talk specifically about Ukraine`s allegation that Russia is using phosphorus bonds. Explain to us what they are and why that`s so alarming?
MCCAFRREY: Well, it`s a -- it`s not a very complicated issue. White phosphorus is WEP weapons, we`ve used them artillery bombs, we`ve used them in Iraq. Primarily from the U.S. military perspective, they`re what`s called an ops current (ph), their smoke cover. We use them in the battle of Fallujah to cover the withdrawal of 25,000 civilians out of the city.
They`re not a very effective weapon. If they were, then they`re not designed, classified as a chemical weapon under international law, that they`re used against civilian populations, then it would be a war crime.
So it`s hard for me to be -- I`ve never seen anybody killed violently in an attractive manner. So I never focused on the nature of the weapon as much as are you targeting defenseless civilians? Or their infrastructure? Yes or no?
RUHLE: Julia, there were more sanctions imposed today. And that, of course, is on top of the most aggressive sanctions we`ve ever imposed. Besides hurting the general Russian population, which who has never cared about. Are any of these really hurting Putin himself or his oligarchs?
JULIA FRIEDLANDER, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Thank you. Well, I think what you just said unprecedented has to be repeated over and over again, in the history of sanctions, and certainly, as long as I`ve professionally been associated with them, I have never witnessed something so coordinated amongst allies and deployed so elegantly in such a quick amount of time. And this includes, most importantly, the freezing of Russia`s war chest. The foreign exchange reserves.
Today`s actions, sanctioning the entirety of the Russian Duma, listing military industrial complex and trying to sew up Russia`s deployment of its gold reserves were more a show of unity than they were the heavy hitting stuff.
We`ve already gone in with the strongest sanctions we have ever done, especially on a western style G20 economy.
So again, there is no way that Putin and his inner circle cannot be affected by this, that it cannot affect their calculus about how long they will be able to perpetrate this war.
RUHLE: And this, Julia, is why we want you here tonight to take us to sanctions school. We need you to explain how sanctions work and when they work, because earlier today, Biden said that sanctions are never a deterrent. But I want you to watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The President believes that sanctions are intended to deter.
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The purpose of the sanctions has always been and continues to be deterrence.
ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: The purpose of the sanctions in the first instance is to try to deter Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: So is this mix messaging from the White House? Or is it that sanctions just don`t work overnight? They take time.
FRIEDLANDER: I think it`s a little bit of both, and it reflects a change in strategy. Now, the Biden administration and its allies signaled at the outset before the war began, that they were going to use heavy sanctions in the case that Russia were to invade Ukraine. This was intended to again, yes, use the word deter him from doing so.
But I believe that the Russian government didn`t anticipate that the administration would come in as forcefully as they actually did. So again, it wasn`t a credible deterrent.
Moving on, we then use sanctions as an active measure in a war. This is the first time that we`ve used sanctions as an active financial warfare mechanism to try to stop warfare in its tracks, and to keep to essentially bankrupt the government before it can flatten the country. So this is an experiment I call it an ultimate gamble.
Now, again, the strategy is shifting again, I think, as we`ve seen, as the segment is already highlighted, we overestimated the Russians and underestimated the Ukrainians. So what do we do now, we have to hold out and as you say, let sanctions work. Let them degrade the Russian economy. Again, they`re already standing on the precipice of a currency crisis of a sovereign debt crisis, and allow them to export controls as well. And we don`t talk about this as much, but it`s their major restrictions and all of the material and financial resources that the Russians could get from external sources to continue to perpetrate this war. We`re looking at an insurgency.
RUHLE: I am glad you are here tonight, Julia. Eugene, it is clear as it relates to how he`s handling the war. Biden is getting a lot of support from world leaders. What kind of support does he have from the American public back at home right now?
EUGENE DANIELS, POLITICO WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, at this point, you`ve seen Americans continue to give President Biden better marks than we`ve seen this year, and how they feel like he`s taking care of this war, how he`s built this coalition of international partners to help Ukraine, right?
[23:15:05]
We`ve seen Americans look at and watch all of the horrors as you attacks on civilians and hospitals, women who are pregnant, being taken away in by ambulance. And so people see that. And they also see that looks like the President is doing things on this, right. He`s traveling, he`s been sending his Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense.
So there`s -- the benefit people see things happening. And that is, when you start seeing numbers happen, you seeing a bounce over and over for the president is not as high, I think, as the White House would want, obviously, because you also have inflation, you have gas prices that are pulling it back down. So there`s that push and pull.
But this ship is going to be really important, because it`s important for the American people to see the President standing with these leaders, doing the tough stuff, right, talking about how they are going to do more sanctions, talking about consequences if Russia does indeed use chemical weapons on civilians.
And then as he heads to Poland, you`re going to see him talking about and speaking with and hearing from refugees, more than millions and millions of people who have struggled and have left their homes.
I`ve talked to quite a few of them over the last few weeks about how terrible this war is for those folks, and how they don`t feel like they`re going to be going home, because they probably don`t have a home to go to.
And so they`ll see him kind of on this empathy tour as well. So this trip is kind of has those two goals of looking and sounding very tough, making sure that the alliance that he`s already built stays connected as we move forward.
And also the empathy aspect of it, letting people know that, you know, we`re going to allow 100,000 Ukrainians in and that he`s also in touch with that aspect of the score as well.
RUHLE: And Eugene, before we go, a reporter in Brussels asked President Biden about the 2024 election, and I want to share how he answered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We`re a long way off in elections, a long way off. My focus of any election is on making sure that we retain the House and the United States Senate, so that I have the room to continue to do the things that I`ve been able to do.
One of the things that I take some solace from, is I don`t think you`ll find any European leader who thinks that I am not up to the job. The next election, I`d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Is Biden -- Is he that confident about beating Trump? Or is what he`s really saying? I`m in the middle of a war and DJT is the least of my worries.
DANIELS: I think it is both he wants people to see him talking about the war not talking about 2024. Like he said world ways off, but he does feel confident that he would be Donald Trump again, and that`s something that we know when he`s been telling folks for a while now.
RUHLE: All right, then Eugene Daniels, General Barry McCaffrey and Julia Friedlander. Thank you all for starting us off tonight.
Coming up, it`s already absurd for someone to push to overturn a legitimate presidential election. But what if that someone doing the pushing was the wife of a Supreme Court justice? Well, today we learned that happened.
And later, President Biden warns they`re coming. Food shortages, bracing for the global fallout from the war in the breadbasket of Europe. THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on a Thursday night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:22:43]
RUHLE: We are learning much more tonight about efforts to overturn the 2020 election. According to text messages obtained by the Washington Post, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was pushing then White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to convince Trump not to concede.
As the Post reports the more than two dozen text messages were sent just as Trump and his allies were promising to go, guess where, the Supreme Court to overturn the results.
NBC News has confirmed the January 6 Committee has a number of text messages from Virginia Thomas, known as Ginni, and Mark Meadows himself.
So let`s dig in. Barbara McQuade joins us, Federal -- veteran federal prosecutor and former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She worked with the Department of Justice during the Biden transition, and is a professor at University of Michigan`s Law School.
Barb, you got to get us smarter here. I just want to share one of the messages. Ginni Thomas sent after Biden was declared the winner, quote, Help this great President stand firm, Mark. The majority knows Biden and the left is attempting the greatest heist of our history. Meadows wrote back to her on November 24 quote, this is a fight of good versus evil. What do you think about this?
BARBARA MCQUADE, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, Stephanie, it best this is wildly inappropriate. But at worst, it is, I think, perhaps calling into question the impartiality of Clarence Thomas or husband on the Supreme Court. Remember, as you said, Donald Trump was vowing to go to the Supreme Court to stop the January 6 Committee from having to turn over documents. He was talking about having the Supreme Court intervene to determine the outcome of the election.
And so knowing that he`s saying these things, she is continuing to reach out to the Chief of Staff for Donald Trump.
Now, of course, Supreme Court justices and their spouses are different people, they`re different entities. And the rules about ethics on the Supreme Court are really only about if there`s a financial interest for the justice, or if their spouse is an actual party to a lawsuit that they have to recuse themselves.
But I think this could get a renewed call for higher levels of recusal in the Supreme Court perhaps the same rules that we see at other levels of the court where recusal is also necessary if members of the public could fairly question their impartiality.
[23:25:12]
And I think here, there has to be some question, especially since we know that Clarence Thomas was the only one to dissent from the opinion in the case where Donald Trump challenged the National Archives production of documents to the January 6 Committee. He was the only one of the nine who thought Donald Trump should prevail there. Did he know that Ginni Thomas`s documents might be included there? And is that why he wanted to stop it? So I think his partiality -- impartiality can be reasonably questioned. And so recusal here seems like the only way to preserve the legitimacy of the court.
RUHLE: Barb, can we slow down and say that again and underline it, instead of recusing himself, Clarence Thomas was the only Supreme Court Justice to vote to block the January 6 Committee from getting Trump`s papers.
MCQUADE: Exactly.
RUHLE: The facts actually did that there`s no consequences for that.
MCQUADE: Currently, there are no consequences for that. You know, there have been some calls for better recusal rules, more stringent recusal rules for justices on the Supreme Court, but instead, they recuse themselves. And they`re only required to do it in a narrow subset of cases, in contrast to their counterparts at other levels of the court.
John Roberts himself has been a big advocate of allowing the Supreme Court to police themselves. That was the topic of his annual report to the nation at the end of last year. I think this is going to call for increased scrutiny and increased pressure to improve those recusal rules to restore the legitimacy of the court.
I mean, if you look at this one, I think it is very fair to question his impartiality when it may be the case that the documents he was seeking to block were her e-mail messages or her text messages. That could be at least embarrassing to her if not incriminating.
RUHLE: Then, Barb, forgive me because I need to repeat this one, one more time, the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States who was trying to stay in power illegally was plotting with the wife of the Supreme Court Justice, who could end up ruling on the transition of power.
What you`re telling us is there are no rules governing the Supreme Court justices that they have to follow. There`s no governing body that`s going to look at this and say, This is not allowed. None.
MCQUADE: Absolutely right. We allowed Supreme Court justices themselves to decide the recusals. You know, our whole system of government, with our three branches of government in our separation of powers relies on each other, to serve as checks and balances. But this is one where there is a very big gap.
And so I think, to at least adopt the same recusal rules that other judges have at lower courts would be really important.
I`ll tell you another point here, Stephanie, that I want to make, which is, I think this shows perhaps the limitations of the January 6 Committee, they got these records in response to a subpoena to Mark Meadows, he produced these voluntarily in response to a subpoena on his own in his good faith. And then he stopped producing them.
You know, who could get the content of all of these, if they wanted to? The Justice Department could because they could use a search warrant. And they wouldn`t have to rely on Mark Meadows to produce them himself. They could go to his phone carrier and get all of them all of their content, and find out what happened because there`s about a month`s worth of messages that seem to have just disappeared. There`s a flurry of pages in November, they stop abruptly.
RUHLE: OK. Then why aren`t they -- why isn`t the Department of Justice pursuing that if Mark Meadows was willing to provide information that`s this humiliating and possibly incriminating to a Supreme Court justice and his wife? But suddenly he stopped? Don`t we want to know what he stopped at?
MCQUADE: Absolutely.
RUHLE: Excuse me, not to the Supreme Court justice.
MCQUADE: Correct. I`m not sure I agree with the assumption that the Justice Department is not investigating. I think that this is something they could quietly do to get a search warrant from phone providers to look at these kinds of documents. They`re probably thousands of them to review, but it is something they could do because they have additional authorities that the January 6 committee lacks. So I think this is a yet another burning reason why the Justice Department should be investigating.
RUHLE: Well, I`m sure interested. Barbara McQuade, thank you for joining us tonight. Always good to see. Coming up, one of our friends on the ground in Kyiv, worries a second wave of Russian attacks is coming and could include those unconventional weapons we talked about. We`ll ask him about that and more when the 11th Hour continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:34:13]
RUHLE: The UN said today more than half of all Ukrainian children have been displaced since the war began. It includes 1.8 million who have fled Ukraine and two and a half million who are now displaced inside the country. NBC`s Dasha Burns has more tonight on some of the most vulnerable refugees.
DASHA BURNS, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDEN: Stephanie the numbers here are just absolutely staggering. The scale of children who had been displaced one into Ukrainian children have had to leave their homes and that is likely a lower estimate and that number is likely to grow, according to UNICEF.
UNICEF also tells me that about 7,500 children have actually been born into this war.
[23:35:00]
And Stephanie among The kids who cross the border are children who came here to Poland without parents, without family members. Ukraine has a large number of orphans and they are among the most vulnerable caught in this conflict.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
BURNS (voice-over): Song time is a highlight of the day for these kids. They`re orphans who fled to Poland with their caretakers. Among them 15- year-old Leah, were withholding her last name.
This is the second time Leah has fled conflict in Ukraine. In 2014, she escaped violence in the east. Now, eight years later retreating West again. Many Ukrainian orphans like Leah are deemed social orphans. They have living parents unable to care for them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom in Mariupol. And my dad in Kyiv with my brother. And it`s hard. I don`t know what happened was my mom if she died.
BURNS (on camera): The fifth of March is the last time you talked to your mom?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
BURNS: Do you know where she is now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know.
BURNS (voice-over): Ukraine has one of the largest orphanage systems in Europe caring for almost 100,000 children, according to UNICEF. The agency also warns that children fleeing war are at heightened risk for trafficking.
It`s a concern from Nicola Sahar (ph) of the director of Leah`s orphanage.
NICOLA SAHAR, DIRECTOR OF ORPHANAGE: (through translator): It`s a big danger he says it`s why they registered all the children with the Ukrainian embassy here in Poland.
Ukraine is among the top countries for U.S. adoptions, according to State Department data. It`s where American Wendy Farrell found her daughter. She then started a nonprofit to support this orphanage and flew here when the war broke out.
(on camera): What`s it been like to watch these kids go through all of this?
WENDY FARRELL (ph), STARTED NONPROFIT TO SUPPORT THIS ORPHANAGE: Our kids are very resilient, but it was traumatic.
BURNS (voice-over): She`s working to bring them to the US.
FERRELL (ph): I don`t want them to be lost in the shuffle.
BURNS: But the U.S. Consulate is backlogged and Ukraine has expressed concern about moving children out of Europe. For Leah, America would be a dream come true. But her heart is with Ukraine.
Leah says she feels pain whenever she plays her favorite song. It`s called Pray for Ukraine. She hopes the world will.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
BURNS: And Stephanie, Nicola (ph), the director of that orphanage tells me he`s worried that there will be more orphans as a result of this war. He said he already saw this happen in 2014 after that conflict in the east and he is afraid it`s going to happen again, Stephanie.
RUHLE: Really, really important reporting. Our thanks to our own Dasha Burns. For more on the situation near Kyiv, let`s welcome back our friend Igor Novikov. He`s a former adviser to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.
Igor, good to see you this evening. Good morning to you.
Just minutes before you and I spoke last week, there was a massive explosion that shook your house, you said that the noises of war had become so frequent. Your children were just sleeping through it. What`s it like now?
IGOR NOVIKOV, FMR. ADVISER TO URKAINIAN PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY: Well, it`s tonight`s been quieter than usual. Last night was more or less hellish. So I mean, it really depends on what`s going on. But you know, the fighting, we`re in between two waves as the fighting is moving further away from Kyiv is definitely become quieter.
But there`s another thing I noticed about myself, I`m actually becoming an expert on the actual sounds of war. So you know, I can tell the difference between you know, the incoming and outgoing artillery. I can tell the difference between different kinds of missiles and, you know, can tell how dangerous they are to us.
And let me tell you from experience, one of the worst experiences soundwise, is actually an anti-aircraft missile. So something really good for you is protecting you, going supersonic over your house. I mean, it`s unpleasant.
RUHLE: Is anything normal about your life and your lifestyle right now? Are your children able to go to school? Is there a school to go to?
NOVIKOV: Well, we have online schools, but we actually doing homeschooling at the moment. There is no way to go to school. So, you know, offline teaching, you know, is impossible at the moment, you know, but your brain is really good at adapting.
And life is I would describe it as a 50-50 between, you know, complete normalcy and complete help. So I think the best analogy here would be our supermarket. So you know, sometimes they wouldn`t have like bread or milk. But at the same time, I`ve -- I went shopping with my mom yesterday, and I saw three different kinds of caviar in an offer. So people don`t have any money, but we have caviar. So that`s kind of -- that`s the surreal nature of this war life. You know, that`s the best way to describe it.
[23:40:00]
RUHLE: Surreal indeed. I want to talk NATO. They have now committed extra troops along the eastern border of Ukraine are you encouraged by what you saw from the NATO leaders today?
NOVIKOV: Well, look, I mean, we`ve learned the hard way not to pay attention to rhetoric, but to kind of look at actions. We are here partially because, you know, we`ve been helped with those stingers and javelins and laws and whatnot, right?
But at the same time, obviously, it`s more of a painkiller, rather than a cure to this unfortunate contagious disease that we`re having. So we`ll have to wait and see.
I mean, certain signs are promising. It`s important the use of unconventional weapons such as you know, chemical, biological weapons, or even tactical nuclear weapons is at least being discussed at the top level. And hopefully that means some preparations to prevent that from happening, also being discussed.
RUHLE: How worried? Are you about the potential use of chemical weapons on Putin`s part?
NOVIKOV: Well, if you remember I said, like, day three of the world said, like, look, Kyiv is not going to fall despite popular belief that we`re going to fall in 96 hours. I mean, we were here still and has been a month. But at the same time, if Russia keeps pushing against Kyiv, I mean, they must have something in mind, unless it`s a distraction, right?
So if they want to take Kyiv, I mean, they you only take it with the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, that`s the only way to even stand the chance. And the fact that they haven`t given up it worries me a lot.
But look, at the same time, what can you do, I mean, as a father, and as a husband in Kyiv, you just go about your daily life, and you prepare as best as you can. By the way, you know, for the children, here`s a story for you.
I`m working closely now with my friends at Magneto (ph) Foundation, who are dealing with Mariupol helping evacuate people. One story was, you know, to me, the best kind of description was happening in Ukraine.
So this woman with a child, she was trying to evacuate the city, and she saw two kids in the next two bodies of the dead parents. So she adopted them on the spot. And she took him out of Ukrainian, you know, they became her children. And, you know, thankfully, our border patrol allowed them out. And, you know, they`re refugees in Europe now.
But that`s the harsh reality that we facing everyday. You know, you see a child, you know, parents have been killed. You`re the father, you`re the mother of the child, you, you have no choice. And luckily, people can do except that you don`t have to convince them.
And you know, the last thing I want to say, I`ve been on a couple of interviews today, and they showed like different clips about what`s happening in Ukraine. And there was this disclaimer in the things that you`re about to see are very disturbing. Full case, we live in those disturbing things, you know, and there`s no disclaimer. So, I think the West needs to kind of get together and then help us get through this.
RUHLE: All right, Igor, always good to see you. I`m glad you and your family are safe. Igor Novikov, thank you.
Coming up, rising food prices were already a problem before the war in Ukraine. But this goes beyond your grocery bill. We could be headed for a global food crisis. This matters and we`re all over it when the 11th Hour continues.
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[23:47:40]
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BIDEN: Both Russia and Ukraine have been the breadbasket of Europe in terms of wheat. We talked about urging all the European countries and everyone else to and trade restrictions on sending limitations on sending food abroad. And so we are in the process of working out with our European friends, what it would be -- what it would take to help alleviate the concerns relative to food shortages.
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RUHLE: There is another humanitarian crisis coming this fall and it has already begun. Russia and Ukraine together typically export more than 25 percent of the world`s wheat. Russia is also a key exporter of fertilizers and sanctions have caused their prices to spike potentially endangering upcoming crops. Some experts are warning of a global food shortage and sounding the alarm about a possible increase in world hunger. This really matters here and around the world.
So let`s discuss and welcome crop scientist Dr. Sarah Taber and Gabriela Boucher, the executive director of Oxfam International, a global network which fights inequality to end poverty and injustice.
Gabriela, I turn to you first. We keep hearing and talking all about our own frustrations at the grocery store. But help us understand if there really is a green shortage, a wheat shortage, what countries would be hit the hardest?
GABRIELA BOUCHER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OXFAM INTERNATIONAL: Thank you. So I`ve just been back from Somalia. And there I`ve visited because they`re experiencing an unprecedented drought. So it`s three failed rainy seasons. And there`s really an extreme situation that we`re trying to avert a catastrophe really. And Somalia is a country that is entirely dependent on imports of food.
So I met with people there who are really in the -- with very, very limited supplies and sharing among them. For example, the little water that can be brought out of the boreholes so we`re very concerned about the situation both Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya in terms of drought and South Sudan has a flood that has been going on now for five years. So together with a hunger crisis that is affecting 21 million people in the Horn of Africa and East Africa.
[23:50:05]
Sarah, we know we cannot control droughts, we cannot speed up crop growth or hit go on farms. But are there other countries in a position to make up for this probable shortfall from Russian and Ukrainian wheat?
SARAH TABER, CROP SCIENTIST: Yes, I mean, actually, we can increase crop production. Crop futures for wheat started increasing back in November, and people started planting more all around the world. India, in particular, the shortfall from Ukraine and Russia is projected to be about 7 million tons, which sounds like a lot. But India alone is set to export four to 6 billion more tons that last year. So almost just increased exports from India are set to cover that.
The United States has 15 million tons just leftover from last year. We planted 4 million more tons of seed. So the United States plus Australia, South Africa, Canada, a lot of wheat exporting countries began preparing for this back in November.
So wheat plant in the fall and you harvest in the spring. And so those larger crops are starting to come in to the point where elevators are not using the same higher prices that the Wall Street brokers are like. We`re starting to get to different levels that people actually in the grain trader down here and the Wall Street guys are up here. And at some point, they`re going to have to come back down and meet.
There`s some crazy bubble action going on that the crop people are -- the crop prices are going up, but not nearly to the level we`re seeing for Wall Street. It`s not what the prices are trading are not reflecting reality. And they`re not they`re not reflecting what people experienced in corrupt trade are going along with. So that`s interesting to watch, so.
RUHLE: Gabriela, that sounds like very good news. So for the concerns that we have in different parts of the world, specifically, where you just left, could this be good news that you could be getting imports from other countries and not need Russia and Ukraine.
BOUCHER: Well, I suppose that would be a big change in supply chains at the moment in Somalia, it`s almost 100 percent wheat from Ukraine and Russia and is the same for the rest of the region. And added to that, we have the issue of fuel prices that have gone up as well. So everything has to be distributed across the country, in trucks that also use fuel. So that`s another of the problems.
And to compound everything, of course, these countries have gone into further debt to COVID. And now, the situation is that the UN appeals that is for 6 billion for the countries was defective here has only received 3 percent of funding.
So there is no money also to buy, the week that become available -- that will become available. So we`re very concerned about that because we may be facing a really catastrophic situation as the world is not focusing on these prices here in Yemen in the Sahale. So we need to really bring the world`s attention now to avert a real catastrophe.
RUHLE: And we are paying attention. Thank you both for making us smarter tonight. We appreciate it. Sarah Taber, Gabriela Boucher, thank you both.
Coming up, what we heard from world leaders today about the importance of unity in a very difficult time when the 11th Hour continues.
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[23:57:27]
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is success at this summit going to look like for President Biden?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: A unified NATO an effort to convince Putin what he has not been convinced of before that, you know, anything Putin does is not going to split this alliance.
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RUHLE: The last thing before we go tonight, a unified NATO. Our friend presidential historian Michael Beschloss tweeted today, today Biden is at the NATO summit, and unlike his predecessor, he hasn`t shoved any other leaders. He`s referencing of course to the time Trump shoved the president of Montenegro at a NATO meeting back in 2017. Right there on your screen, the Prime Minister.
We`ve come a long way, since the former guy was shoving other leaders, President Biden and other world leaders we`re seeing today reaffirming their alliances, and standing united in the face of Russian aggression.
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JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: We are the strongest alliance in the world. And as long as we stand together, we are also safe.
JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADA PRIME MINISTER: Despite its name, NATO is not simply a geographic Alliance. It`s a group of countries who stand together because we believe in democracy and the rule of law, the defense of human rights and values that underpin all of our societies. NATO and partners around the world are united in condemning and standing up to Russia.
BORIS JOHNSON, UNITED KINGDOM PRIME MINISTER: I think it`s very important that we work together to get this thing done as fast as possible. The harder are our sanctions, the tougher are our economic vice around the Putin regime, the more we can do to help the Ukrainians. I think the faster that this thing could be over Putin.
BIDEN: Putin was banking on NATO being split. My early conversation with him in December and early January, it was clear to me he didn`t think we could sustain this cohesion. NATO has never, never been more united than it is today. Putin is getting exactly the opposite what he intended to have, as a consequence of going into Ukraine.
We built that same unity with our European Union, and with a leading democracies of the G7. But we have to demonstrate. The reason I asked for the meeting we have to stay fully, totally thoroughly united. Thank you.
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RUHLE: A reminder, the former guy, he floated the idea of getting us out of that group but tonight a reassuring message, if we stand together, we are safe, a show of unity from NATO leaders.
[00:00:07]
That is what takes us off the air this evening. And on that good note, I wish you a good night. From all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News, thanks for staying up late with us. I`ll see you at the end of tomorrow.