:01:03
This is Richard Valeriani
reporting live...
:01:06
for CNN from the French
aircraft carrier Foch...
:01:08
somewhere in the Mediterranean.
:01:11
Six days ago,
as the rebellion in Chechnya...
:01:13
spread to the neighboring Caucasus
republics, the Russian president...
:01:16
ordered massive bombing strikes
against rebel positions...
:01:19
around Rutul and Belokany.
:01:22
Appalled at the loss of human life,
the President of the United States...
:01:26
joined by the French president
and the British prime minister...
:01:29
suspended all foreign aid
to Russia.
:01:31
Ultranationalist leader
Vladimir Radchenko...
:01:34
denounced the U.S. Pressure
as an act of war...
:01:38
against the Russian Republic
and Russian sovereignty.
:01:40
Denouncing his own president
as a U.S. Puppet...
:01:43
he called on the Russian people
to join him in revolt.
:01:48
He said, "This brutish and hypocritical
American intervention...
:01:51
will not go unanswered."
:01:53
On Tuesday, at 10:00
in the morning Moscow time...
:01:56
the Russian parliament was suspended
and martial law was declared.
:02:01
With the government in crisis,
the Russian Republic...
:02:03
was entering into what can only
be described as a state of civil war.
:02:07
Then yesterday at dawn,
Radchenko and rebel forces...
:02:10
seized the region around Vladivostok,
including a naval base...
:02:14
and a nuclear missile base
housing Russian ICBMs.
:02:17
As regular Russian military forces
move in to encircle Radchenko...
:02:23
allied military forces
are in a state of high alert.
:02:26
These French planes
taking off behind me...
:02:28
have been deployed near the Caucasus
since the beginning of the crisis...
:02:32
and a crisis which started
in the Caucasus
:02:35
has now spread to the Far East...
:02:37
and appears to be turning into the worst
standoff since the Cuban missile crisis.
:02:42
This is Richard Valeriani
reporting live for CNN...
:02:45
from the French aircraft carrier Foch,
somewhere in the Mediterranean.
:02:55
Abracadabra!
:02:57
- I can't hear you.
- [Screaming] Abracadabra!