Richard Engel Reports ‘Nervous’ Kyiv Residents ‘Bracing for a Whole Different Level of Violence’ as Russian Convoy Approaches

NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel said that residents of Kyiv are preparing themselves for the arrival of a large Russian military convoy currently approaching the city.

Initially the convoy of soldiers, tanks, artillery, and other equipment was said to be 17 miles long. However, one report revised that figure upward to 40 miles based on satellite images.

Speaking to Rachel Maddow on Monday night (Tuesday morning in Kyiv), Engel noted that “there is a lot of fear” among the citizenry.

“The city hasn’t seen that much violence frankly thus far,” he said. “There have been airstrikes. There were few airstrikes today. But what this city is bracing for is a whole different level of violence with that 17 mile long convoy to the north of here that is heading this way.”

(Engel cited the previous estimated length of the convoy.)

He continued, “It is a convoy that is designed to do one thing. It is designed to put a city under siege and to potentially topple it and tackle it. So, people here are very, very nervous about that.”

Engel said it appeared his own prediction that Russian President Vladimir Putin would keep his military objectives limited has turned out to be wrong.

“I thought he was gonna take a piece of Donbas, I thought perhaps he would go for a land corridor,” he said. “But he’s decided not to. He’s decided to take down the whole government and attack from everywhere.”

Engel reported that the Russians “haven’t been very good” at achieving their aims in Ukraine and that he couldn’t understand why the Russians initially sent small contingents of soldiers into cities to carry out minor forays.

“In some cases, the Ukrainians destroyed them,” he said. “So they tried to do this technique, which hasn’t really worked for them. They’ve had logistical problems, they’ve had supply issues, especially when it comes to fuel. Some of the soldiers have been lost.

“And now, unfortunately, it seems like – and we saw this in Kharkiv today with this convoy – it’s quite clear they’re going back to a more traditional Russian approach, more of the Grozny approach, which is, go in force, put your troops in a line, attack from the front, attack from the back. And just siege and attack. So, the more sophisticated approach seems to have been something of the past for now. So, I don’t know exactly why they did it, and clearly Vladimir Putin isn’t happy the way things have been going so far.”

Watch above via MSNBC.