intended consequences of that action is beyond what they could stomach right now. well this debate will certainly continue in the coming days and weeks. but we have to leave it there. ambassador bill taylor and mark kimmet, thank you so much for joining us this morning. thank you. do stay with us because we re talking about ukraine and texas. how it took an entire community to reunite two sisters and bring one of them to safety. also in just a little more than a month, trump era border restrictions will come to an endch why more than a dozen states are stepping in to try to stop that. kitchen? sorted. hot tub, why not? and of course, puppy-friendly. we don t like to say p perfect, but it s pretty perfect. booking.com, booking.yeah. okay everyone, our missioion is to provide complete balanced nutrition for strength and energy. woo hoo! ensure, complete balanced nutrition
so, alex, there is no real military reason. as general kimmet could describe, for using these kind of weapons in ukraine. none. and bill burns is of course right that there are no no indications that the russians are seriously making plans to use these. that said, president zelenskyy is also right that you have to be prepare and you have to be ready for that kind of thing. and there are preparations certainly being made. but i think that bill burns is right, we ll know if they re going to be moving in that direction and so far we ve not seen that. general, we ve been talking a lot about this new weapons shipment, the biden administration touting that they ve sent or at least are sending more than $3 billion worth of weapons to ukraine. when you look at this package, which includes howitzers, mi-17 helicopters and switchblade drones and a quite a long list.
the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine william taylor and retired brigadier general mark kimmet, the assistant secretary of state for political affairs during the bush administration. thank you so much for joining me this morning. i want to start with you, general and the latest news out of the capital kyiv. the capital has been relatively quiet in recent days as the russians have pulled back. now we re getting word of a bombing on the outskirts of the capital, our team is reporting at least one person killed. russia has warned that it would strike what they call decision-making centers in response to these accusations that ukraine is striking inside of russian territory. what do you make of this apparent attack on the kyiv outskirt this is morning? well i don t think it is much more than the russians continuing to remind kyiv that they ve got the ability to reach out and touch them. that they should consider no
involve military encroachment. the ukrainian think tanks are saying that russians don t actually have enough troops amassed at the border for full-scale invasion. but what they are concerned with is hybrid warfare. so it s entirely possible that what we re seeing today is actually the beginning. let s continue the conversation with retired brigadier general mark kimmet. this is part of the putin playbook. we re not sure what s happening here and who is responsible for it, but we do know this has been a big part of the russian playbook, the putin playbook in recent years here in the united states, around the world, around our elections and now ukraine s defense ministry, major commercial banks reporting cyberattacks. what does that tell you? well, it tells me as a reporter from ukraine said, this may just be part of his way out the door or the first shot. he also said this is part of the russian playbook. i am more concerned that if the
country s largest commercial banks are, right now, under an apparent cyberattack. let s bring in brigadier general mark or alex marquardt first? alex. hey, john, yeah, we re hearing we re getting word that there has been a cyberattack on at least two significant websites. the ministry of defense. their website is down as well as the website of one of ukraine s largest commercial banks. this is, we are being told, what appears to be what s known as a ddos attack. that s a denial of service attack when attackers make it impossible for folks like you and me to access those websites. for the time being, and, of course, we re just learning this so a lot still to come out. for the time being it appears to be the forward facing, public facing parts of this bank and of the ministry of defense. we don t know whether there s any damage beyond that. for example, whether there would be any military communications, for example, that would have been affected.