russian forces continue to be bogged down, and they are relying on longer-range artillery, which is having a devastating impact on you ukraine civilians. putin has now committed nearly 100% of his prestage combat power, firing 625 ballistic and cruise missiles since the start of the invasion. that s an additional 25 missiles in the past 24 hours. mostly short and medium range from mobile positions inside ukraine, according to the pentagon. u.s. officials say there is no consideration being given to setting up a no-fly zone, which would have to cover 230,000 square miles and would put the u.s. at war with russia. defense secretary also ordered an additional 500,000 troops to europe. kc 135 tankers and air defense systems to poland and romania. there are now 100,000 u.s. personnel deployed to europe, about 19,000 more than when putin began preparing to invade.
and talking about bringing people out by bus, these are towns with populations of 400,000, so it s a lot of busses. a lot of work to get people out through a combat zone, john. john: mike, thank you. we ll check back with you a little later on. sandra: john, ukraine has asked for more military supplies, the pentagon is working with poland to backfill the military with jets so they can supply some of the fleet to the ukraine air force. jennifer griffin has the latest at pentagon for us, hi, jennifer. defense secretary lloyd austin ordered additional 500 u.s. troops to europe to augment those there. and kc-135 refueling tankers to europe, air defense systems to poland and romania. includes an ordinance company and maintenance team, to help those already there. now about 100,000 u.s. personnel
require. as president biden noted before, we are not and will not send forces in to ukraine. these additional personnel will be going to nato s eastern flank. specifically, we ll be sending a number of kc-135 refuelling aircraft out of fairfield air force base in spokane, deploy approximately 150 personnel. they re scheduled right now, planned right now, to avoid greece to provide support to the commander of the u.s. european command. this 500 will also include an air support operation center out of fort stork georgia. they ll comprise basically a 40-personnel right now. they re planned to deploy to poland, romanian. help provide additional command and control for u.s. european flight command operations. lastly 300 personnel will be
allies to work outside some of the protocols? well, again, putin is really right out of the russian playbook 101 in terms of not only, you know, military targets, but as we ve seen before our eyes, the civilian atrocities that really, clearly, earmark him as a war criminal. again though, i think it s time that we should maintain a clear unified position with nato. i would hesitate to, again, engage u.s. forces or nato forces in the conflict at this point. but, again, we need to make sure we bolster our nato defenses, continue to not only resupply with military goods and so forth, but also redeploy forces. we now have k kc-135 tankers, we ve added elements of the 82nd airborne only 60 miles away from this missile attack. but again, i believe our mission ought to be to defend, deter not at this point, certainly, in my