the another surprise for the world the intense resolve of that entertainer turned president, volodymyr zelenskyy. unlike others in his position, he did not indeed, he s only left the country a handful of times to plea for guns and ammunition. and for the last year, he has faced off from across the border with vladimir putin, who has ruled russia for more than two decades. a key player who is not a participant in the war, the united states of america. it is a country that has organized the sanctions against russia. it is the country that has been the single biggest provider of military and non-military assistance, and tonight, on this special program, you will hear from two top officials on america s national security team. first, the biden administration s key player on countering russia s war in ukraine, the national security adviser jake sullivan, who is with president biden in kyiv this week. also, usaid administrator samantha power, the official responsible for making
need to get to, that there isn t corruption, graft, siphoning off? what kind of assurances can you give? one thing, just stepping back and recalling a year ago putin s speech where he described his motivation for invading ukraine, at the heart of it was his panic over the progress that ukraine was making to mitigate itself to europe, for starters. to become more democratic, and to take on this corruption fight. because that endangered so many of his and his cronies ill gotten gains. so, actually, what you ve seen, particularly since 2014, it s the strengthening of a whole series of anti corruption institutions within ukraine. are they panacea for decades, generations where corruption was a major issue? absolutely not. but you ve seen u.s. aid and other u.s. government actors throw their weight around the support for independent media. including once this war broke out a year ago, getting flak jackets and sat phones to
and the international medical corps has reached 15,000 people with its mental health care outreach. we anticipate it s going to increase as the conflict continues. you mention this. and i want to come back to it. your organization also focuses on gender based violence, violence against women and girls. how much of an issue has that been? have you been able to make a difference with that? so, michael, yes, it s a very serious issue here. we take it very seriously. we have an entire team of technical specialists that deal with violence against women issues. as we have seen here, as another conflicts settings, sexual assault is weaponized as an instrument of war. it is present here in this conflict. this results in severe, acute vulnerability for women and girls in this conflict. we have gotten apparatus that address that country wide, and specially in frontline areas where the needs are more cute. again, we have reached 15,000
enthusiasm there will be when this war is officially over. you know, a number of actors our on the outside, really wanting to be a part of the longer term solution. but getting the institutional frameworks right is something we can be working on right now, in addition to the stopgap recovery efforts. jake, i ve got to ask you one final question. we ve talked all about the world, russia, ukraine. we haven t talked about what s going on in the united states. do you worry when you hear voices like governor desantis, senator josh hawley, senator vance questioning why the united states is doing this, asking why we should be spending this money, wondering whether we should be taking a more neutral position? what i find so interesting about that perspective is we can t operate in the world because we have to operate at home, as it presents a fundamentally false choice which is not at all who america
of the ukrainians. but i have to say, that our ability to flow assistance very rapidly in the lead up and in the early weeks of the war played a critical role in supporting the courage and bravery of the ukrainian people in defending the city of kyiv and ensuring that kyiv did not fall. and for that, i think the united states and our allies and all of the other countries supporting ukraine, played not the vital role, because the vital role was played by the ukrainian people, but a critical role, and one that we continue to play to this day with what we are supplying. but, jake there does seem to be a pattern. the ukrainians ask for something. the administration is ambivalent. time passes. there is a clamor around it that builds. and then it starts leaning towards it, and then finally delivers it. that s what happened with himars. that s what happened with patriots. that s what happened with the