joining us live from lviv ukraine, is nbc s jay gray. thanks for being with us. you had an opportunity to meet some ukrainian artists who are contributing in their own way during this war. tell us more about it. yes, and you know, jonathan, everybody in this country it seems, since the invasion, has tried to pull together. and help one another out. we are in what was an empty warehouse. it has turned into for lack of a better word, a coffee plant. coffee makers from the east who were bombed out of their businesses, relocating here, bringing their equipment, and restarting the process of making and selling coffee for a lot of these businesses, the bottom line is helping out their heroes, on the front lines. souvenirs of solidarity. ukraine s yellow and blue, flash across chocolate and coffee mugs, tote bags and t-shirts. national pride that comes with a
hearing. they said, this is the first time since weapons have been used in combat and they said they do not believe their there are any sort of game changer. secretary austin also addressed whether he thinks putin s use of some missiles means he might be closer to using nuclear weapons. he has options, you know, he can, you know, i mean he can launch a cyber attack, he can employ chemical weapons, those kinds of things that were all, that we re all on the lookout for to see if he makes those kinds of decisions but i don t think this necessarily takes him to the use of a nuclear weapon. a 21-year-old russian soldier will be the first russian service member to stand trial in ukraine for war crimes since the start of the invasion. according to ukraine s prosecutor-general, the russian sergeant is accused of fatally shooting a civilian on a bicycle. back in february.
despite these efforts, however, the post writes u.s. officials have limited control on how their ukrainian beneficiaries use the intelligence provided, after it s exchanged. for instance, while the u.s. insists it is not actively helping ukraine kill russian general, officials say they are providing information about the locations of russian command and control facilities. joining us now, white house reporter for the wall street journal, my friend ken thomas. great to see you this morning. let s start with intelligence. and president biden has reportedly been displeased by some recent intel leaks on ukraine. some of these stories ending up in the papers talking about how the u.s. may have helped ukraine take out high profile targets. talk us to about what s going on there and the administration s efforts to limit provoking putin further. right, the president was not happy when there were these
probably not going to happen today, jonathan. it is caught up. there are two republicans who are holding it up at this point. senator rand paul and senator john kennedy of louisiana, as well. that vote might slip into next week, which the president does not want. no. we ve certainly heard from the white house a lot about the urgency to get this vote done. in fact, the president even supporting the de-coupling of the ukraine aid package from the covid funds. we can set aside the wisdom of delaying covid funding as more cases are soaring. real quick, inflation. we heard from the president on it. it s the defining issue right now. what s the democrats message? the democrats keep saying that they have created a good economy and that they are going to tackle inflation. you can expect a lot of show boat, especially in the house of representatives, where they try to address inflation, including gas prices. that could happen as early as next week. it s going to be a very
american farmers understand putin s war has cut off critical sources of food. ukraine is the world s largest producer of wheat. and corn. and cooking oil. wheat is the largest. for example, ukraine says they have 20 million tons of grain in their silos right now. 20 million tons. and guess what? those tons don t get to market, an awful lot of people in africa are going to starve to death, as they are the soul supplier of african countries. that was president biden in illinois yesterday speaking about the challenge of getting crops and specifically wheat out of ukraine during a war. meanwhile, inflation continues to put a strain on american households. consumer prices surging 8.3% in april, from the same time a year ago. more than analysts were