years ago. she comes to the table with the position that the united states won t discuss ukraine or other broader issues that go beyond the united states direct bilateral purview without those other partners being in the room and that s not the position that russia comes into this at all. she is of the view that the united states is keeping its allies completely on site, that the state department has been very clear laying out just how much leg work secretary of state antony blinken has put in, the phone calls he s made, the conversations he s had with many partners in europe, including ukraine. that is to show that they are completely lined up and have a united position that if russia doesn t de-escalate and if it does move to invade ukraine, there will be serious economic consequences and the potential for military consequences as well. so the positions, i think, are very different here and, therefore, what to expect at the
the biden administration says they are prepared either way. we are ready if president putin chooses to continue to engage in diplomacy and we are serious about that. and we are ready to respond in a united, swift, and severe way with our allies and partners should he choose to move forward with a military escalation. reporter: late today, president biden deflected when asked if he d send additional troops to back nato allies if putin doesn t de-escalate. i m not going to speculate on that. reporter: on saturday, a show of defiance in kharkiv, ukraine s second-largest city, 25 miles from the russia border. thousands of ukrainians marching, demanding an end to the russian threat. and in ukraine s capital, kyiv, more military aid arrived. part of a $200 million package from he united states. today, these volunteers were undergoing training by ukrainian forces. this man said, it s possible to
attention they crave doesn t de-escalate or avoid conflict, but the opposite. apparently biden also craves a status boost, but this is also the opposite. you also wrote this. for those who still don t understand, putin stays in power by keeping the cash flowing and his oligarchs happy. to do this, he needs to be irreplaceable, the big boss, no better way than one-on-one talks with the u.s. president. so gary, i m assuming you don t agree with the notion of the president taking this phone call with putin. yeah, first of all, happy new year. i m not sure it s a happy new year for our friends in ukraine and of course not for millions of my com patriots in russia. it s president biden and the white house, they owe us an explanation about the summit in june and another phone call. so we heard it in june, biden made demands. in phone call, the first phone call, he made an ultimatum. now, why was the third call
lot of different reasons, we must act in a way that doesn t de-escalate and does not escalate they tensions in the situation here. we must be fully engaged with our allies. sandra: i heard that from you as well. what does the next 24 hours look like as far as the response on the part of the united states? i think we are likely to act here, it would be within the time frame, but clearly the president s statement, paid a lot of attention to it. when he said it was a mistake, our viewers may have forgotten but during the war in the late 80s when it reagan to take action we actually made a mistake. we had a uss warship shoot down iranian airline, 290 people killed and 66 were children and we took that, that was clearly a mistake by the ships crew in
trip and message to russia is just that. as you said, he said stop talking and start acting. it couldn t have been more than a symbolic show of force i should say a symbolic show of support for kiev over a 24-hour full business day, but he did hit a lot of notes. you mentioned, of course, the package. it s not a substantial package, but it is a very tough message to russia. he didn t mince his words. the ukrainians are listening very carefully to what biden was saying today. when he told russia to stop talking and start acting, that resonated here. now, this is a post-geneva accord phase. he said it is not open-ended and he made it clear that russia will face further sanctions if it doesn t de-escalate. but in terms of reaction here, people are going to continue going about their business and sometimes it s hard to believe