00:00 Jake, do you have it?
00:01 Yeah.
00:01 Thanks, Jake.
00:02 There was a New York Times analysis today
00:04 that showed Russian missiles breaking
00:06 through Ukrainian air defenses in far greater numbers
00:08 over the past couple of months, with interceptions down.
00:11 At the same time, there was this--
00:14 apparently, Russian forces gathering and surging
00:16 on this new front in the north.
00:18 Is any of this the result of delays
00:20 in getting arms to the Ukrainians,
00:23 or what accounts for this turn?
00:25 So part of it is the fact that Russia
00:28 has continued to push the envelope in terms of just
00:31 the brutality intensity of its campaign.
00:33 It has sought more targets across a wider
00:36 range of Ukraine, most of them civilian, frankly,
00:40 trying to destroy the Ukrainian electricity
00:43 grid with an even greater determination this year
00:46 than they had last year.
00:48 Part of it is about the need for us, the United States
00:51 and our coalition of countries, to surge yet more air defense
00:54 in so that Ukraine has it.
00:56 And yes, part of it is about a six-month delay
00:58 in being able to get assistance to Ukraine that
01:00 has put Ukraine in a hole.
01:02 And we've made no bones about that from this podium.
01:04 So we have started moving air defense to them.
01:07 We intend to move more.
01:08 And by we, I don't just mean the US.
01:10 I mean our whole coalition, with the President, Secretary
01:13 Austin, myself, working day in, day out
01:15 to coordinate those deliveries and to put Ukraine
01:20 in a position where it is better able to defend against what
01:22 Russia is throwing at them.
01:24 And what they are throwing at them is quite considerable.
01:26 To follow up on that, can you quantify how quickly
01:29 are the new packages of military assistance
01:31 arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine,
01:33 and if the US is confident that they'll
01:35 arrive in time for the Ukrainians
01:38 to be able to fend off defenses in Kharkiv
01:41 and other regions?
01:43 The same day that the law took effect,
01:46 now two, three weeks ago, the President
01:48 signed out a billion-dollar package.
01:50 Some of that equipment is already on the battlefield.
01:54 On Friday, he signed out another package.
01:56 Some of that equipment will get onto the battlefield this week.
01:58 Now, some of it has a longer lead time
02:01 in terms of our ability to ship it, organize it, and get it in.
02:05 So I don't want to suggest that all billion dollars
02:07 worth of equipment is on the battlefield.
02:09 But what you will see is a steady flow week by week.
02:13 It's not like we've got to wait well out into the future
02:15 before stuff starts getting delivered.
02:18 And we are going to have another,
02:20 what we call PDA, Presidential Drawdown Authority, package
02:23 just in the coming days, because we're
02:25 trying to really accelerate the tempo of the deliveries,
02:28 recognizing, as I said before, the delay put Ukraine
02:32 in a hole.
02:33 And we're trying to help them dig out of that hole
02:34 as rapidly as possible.
02:35 Do you make PDAs every week now or even faster?
02:39 How we do the drawdown is a little bit less
02:44 of the central issue than what the size of it
02:46 is and what the sequence of actual deliveries are.
02:49 So I'm not going to suggest that there'll
02:51 be a drawdown every week.
02:52 What I am going to suggest is that the level of intensity
02:54 being exhibited right now in terms of moving stuff
02:57 is at a 10 out of 10.
02:59 I spoke this morning, along with Secretary Austin and Chairman
03:03 Brown, with our counterparts in Ukraine,
03:05 General Sierski, Minister Umarov, and Andrei Yermak.
03:09 We spoke for 90 minutes.
03:11 It was a detailed conversation about the situation
03:13 on the front, about the capabilities
03:17 that they are most in need of, and a real triage effort
03:20 to say, get us this stuff this fast so that we
03:25 can be in a position to effectively defend
03:27 against the Russian onslaught.
03:29 And so at the highest levels in our government,
03:31 we are engaged with the highest levels of theirs
03:34 to be able to ensure that we're doing everything
03:36 humanly possible, both ourselves and our allies who
03:39 are searching equipment as well to get it there
03:40 to the front lines.
03:41 Can I just follow up on a visual?
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