his decisions will take him, but we remain concerned about the range of options that he could pursue and will stay focused on his problem set. and i ll turn to the chairman for his thoughts. in terms of the size of the forces that are amassed right now, they could it s potential we don t think there s been a decision as the secretary already made that point, but sure with 100,000 troops and you ve got combined arms formations, ground maneuver, artillery, rockets and all of owes parts that go with it, there s a potential they could launch very, very little warning. that s possible. and there s a wide scale of options that are available to russian leadership, and the best option they should pick, in my view, is a diplomatic solution to resolve whatever differences they have. in terms of how this fields,
some point in time will reveal what he s thinking but again, oum not sure he s made final decisions on what he s going to do yet. and let me first say as the secretary said up front, right now we don t think final decisions have been made to conduct any sort of offensive operation into ukraine by the russians and we firmly believe there s room for a diplomatic outcome here. given the type of forces, the ground maneuver, the artillery, ballistic missile, the air forces, all of it packaged together, if it was unleashed on ukraine, it would be significant, very significant. and it would result in a significant amount of casualties and you can imagine what that might look like in dense urban areas along roads and so on and so forth. it would be horrific, it would be terrible. and it s not necessary. we think a diplomatic outcome is
take this, president joe biden said he ll be moving u.s. troops as tensions escalate. i ll be moving u.s. troops to the nato countries in the near term. oh, boy, here we go. that s happening as the nation s top general warns how dire the situation would be for civilians in ukraine if russia invades. mark milley using terms like horrific to describe what may happen. listen. given the type of forces that are there, the ground maneuver forces ar tilly, ballistic if air forces. unleashed on ukraine would be significant, very significant and it would result in a significant amount of casualties and you can imagine what that
his decisions will take him. but we remain concerned about the range of options that he could pursue and we ll stay focused on this problem set. and i ll turn to the chairman there for his thoughts. in terms of the size of the forces that are amassed right now, they could. i mean, it s potntial. we don t think there s been a decision as the secretary already made. but, sure, with 100,000 troops and you ve got combined arms formations, ground maneuver, artillery, rockets, air and all the other parts that go with it, there s a potential that they could launch on very, very little warning. that s possible. and there s a wide scale of options that are available to russian leadership. and the best option they should pick in my view is a diplomatic solution to resolve whatever differences they have. in terms of how this feels, your second part of the question, as we look at that
putin because it would slow and stop their economy. and i can tell you, from being in ukraine, for the days that i ve been here. they are going about their daily lives. their economy is still moving forward. but they also know that there may come a time if putin crosses that line that they will have to stand up and defend their country. and i walk, when i leave here, i will leave with the confidence that they will just do that. the ukrainian people that i ve spoken with, and we spoke to some here that come from different parts of the country. they are resolved to protect their democracy. today the pentagon laid out some of the resources russia has at the border. take a listen to general milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. 100,000 troops and you ve got combined arms formations, ground maneuver, artillery, rockets, air, all the other peace parts that go with it. there is a potential they could launch on very, very little warning. that s possible.