00:00We had a very good day today. I think we made a tremendous amount of progress, even from the last time I spoke to you, and I apologize for keeping you waiting, but there was more work to be done.
00:08You know, we began almost three weeks ago with a foundational document that we socialized and ran by both sides, and with input from both sides.
00:16And one of the things that happens when you've been involved in this now for 10 months is you get a pretty good sense of what the priorities and the red lines and the important issues are for both sides.
00:25And so that allowed us to create a foundational document, which has been an ongoing working document.
00:30In fact, over the last 96 hours or more, there's been extensive engagement with the Ukrainian side, including our Secretary of the Army and others being on the ground in Kiev, meeting with relevant stakeholders across the Ukrainian political spectrum in the legislative branch and the executive branch and the military and others to further sort of narrow these points.
00:51We arrived here today with one goal, and the goal was to take, you know, what, you know, 28 points or 26 points, depending on which version, as it continued to evolve, and try to narrow the ones that were open items.
01:03And we have achieved that today in a very substantial way.
01:06Now, obviously, like any final agreement, they'll have to be agreed upon by the presidents, and there are a couple issues that we need to continue to work on.
01:14But I think the report today is that I think today was worthwhile.
01:19It was very, very—it is probably the most productive day we have had on this issue, maybe in the entirety of our engagement, but certainly in a very long time.
01:28But work remains.
01:29And because this continues to be a working process, you know, I don't want to declare victory or finality here.
01:37There's still some work to be done, but we are much further ahead today at this time than we were when we began this morning and where we were a week ago for certain.
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