that is a much larger aircraft, a manned aircraft has a whole maintenance tail associated with it. that sort of thing could be much more difficult to do as they attack these air fields. there are some other air fields they could use potentially for that kind of a resupply effort. those would then be targeted by the russians. it would be an extremely dangerous and risky operation and if those aircraft, let s say, do bring them in from poland or wherever, that could then put those aircraft at risk and given that, it could be an endeavor that doesn t pay any dividends. and we re too late to the ball game at this point. ukraine s president zelenskyy posted a short time ago a video of him walking to a hospital and visiting with wounded soldiers. of course, cnn cannot confirm when or where this took place. but what is the message that this moment might be sending to
air, even russian war planes are having a hard time flying over ukraine except in the east because ukraine is artfully using its mobile air defense systems. sadly this official says sending the 24 from poland to ukraine would not help stop the siege and encirclement of the population centers because the air space is contested. they are trying to get air defense systems to keep them at bay, like the patriot defense systems, their system is the f-300, 4 nato countries have. ukraine has shot down 15 to 20 russian fixed wing aircraft and 20 to 25 russian helicopters according to u.s. assessments and verified open source imagery. today russia struck at those two air fields that we have mentioned, 87 miles directly
is this putin testing the west in any way and how are we showing our response to that? i think we just need to be first of all, i don t have granularity on the russian targeting process. they hit a ukrainian training facility. they hit some air fields in the western ukraine. they re expanding their target sets here. i can t get into their heads and tell you exactly what was behind that target on that day with that many cruise missiles. i don t want to just reduce this to some sort of signalling. if mr. putin was trying to signal his displeasure about a strong united nato with this war of his, then he s failed. he s getting what he says he doesn t want, a strong united nato on the western flank. the last few days.
secretary whether the fact russia struck two air fields in the west of the country, whether it was broadening the conflict or a message to nato and poland. your assessment that those fields were targeted because there s been so much talk of these mig-29s and that would have been air fields the migs would have flown from. we don t know. what will the u.s. do if russia uses a chemical weapon in ukraine. i don t want to get into speculating. i think you heard the president clearly today say there would be severe consequences for russia should that happen. sandra: in terms of the discussion about mig-29s and whether to provide them to ukraine or not, a senior u.s. defense tells me ukraine has 56 working fighter jets flying 5 to 10 a day, the bottom line, the most part the war is still fought on the ground, not in the
vladimir put and the enemies of the free world must be stopped. quite the title there. winter has certainly come to ukraine. you say that putin doesn t want deescalation. the world now sees him expanding the attacks into western ukraine hitting two air fields, at least and this military base near the polish border. do you think he wants a conflict with nato? he doesn t want a confrontation because he knows he ll lose but he believes nato will duck. nato will waffle. nato will awalk away as they always did. i wrote the book seven years ago and everyone thought i was crazy because republic of georgia in 2008 or annexed crimea in 2014 so we heard the voice, let s be pragmatic. you know, let s be prudent. let s not be over emotional. and putin kept winning. and now he s pushing even