attack friday that killed more than 50 people. in another sign that the war is entering a new phase, putin has assigned a new general to the ukraine command. he s been called the butcher of syria. we re going to turn now to jake tapper in west ukraine. he s in lviv. ukraine says russia s offensive has begun in the east. it s no longer imminent. it s now. what do you know? reporter: there s something of a disagreement between the pentagon and ukrainian government when it comes to whether or not the full scale bal battle has begun. the ukrainians say this part of the war will not be the way it kicked off in february. it s not going to be one big volley of missiles and bombs going off. it will be different. in any case rgs, we can say the russians are fully preparing for this.
they re holding an hour debate in the senate in the armed services committee on don t ask, don t tell. they have not dedicated a full hearing to roadside bombs. the number one killer of our military over there so we aren t focusing on how to win the war in afghanistan and iraq, we re going to focus on changing social policy in the midst of two wars. it s the wrong time for this debate, i think. wrong time for the debate but it s going on and has obviously been a very hot button issue as it is with you. you said you never knew of anybody that was gay with whom you served. what if someone would have come up to you and come out to you. at that point would that have changed how you went into bal battle? would that have changed how you fought alongside that individual? seriously if you were in the middle of it, a firefighter in fallujah, and somehow you discovered that early in the morning or later at the day would you look at that warrior
of his now being tapped to lead this fight in ukraine. well, the thing is he was brought in in 2015 when the resistance in syria was putting up a fight and it was just a complete and utter december medi dec dismedication of places like al aleppo. even though we have seen what are believed to be war crimes and the purposeful targeting of civilian apartment buildings and the whole scale slaughter of individual cukrainian citizens, it is possible and actually to be candid, it is imaginable, it could get even worse and could be even more bloody and brutal