ukraine. the lead with jake tapper starts right now. welcome to the lead, i m jake tapper. we start with breaking news, the united states military has taken down another high-altitude object flying over the united states this afternoon. the white house announced the object was shot down at 1:45 p.m. eastern time at the direction of president biden. u.s. officials say it was flying off alaska s northern coast at an altitude of 40,000 feet and was approximately the size of a small car. as of now, the administration is not offering many more details than that. we re calling this an object because that s the best description we have right now. we do not know who owns it, whether it s it s state owned or corporate owned or privately owned. we just don t know. the context, of course, is crucial. last saturday, less than a week ago, the u.s. military shot down what the biden administration says was a chinese surveillance balloon. they did this off the coast of the united