Good evening with his country now under state of emergency, under cyber attack and surrounded

on three sides by Russian troops, Ukraine's president made a direct appeal tonight to

the Russian people.

Speaking after midnight, Ukraine's president Zelensky said Vladimir Putin has approved

the invasion of his country, and in Russian, warned the consequences, not just for Ukraine,

could be dire.

There are over 2,000 kilometers of common border between us.

Your army is along that border now.

There's 200,000 soldiers, thousands of military vehicles.

Your leadership approved for them to take a step further, to the territory of another country.

This step can become a great beginning and become a beginning of a great war at the European

China.

President Zelensky went on to say that he tried to reach Vladimir Putin by phone today,

but got silence instead, not alone speaks loudly.

Russia does the break, his speech tonight represents after weeks of downplaying a threat that

the Biden administration, others, had been warning was imminent, a warning that got louder

today.

What we see is that Russian forces continue to assemble closer to the border and put

themselves in an advanced stage of readiness to act, to conduct military action in Ukraine.

Again, at virtually any time now, we believe that they are ready.

I'll just leave it at that.

They're ready.

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