there are the military costs, the billions of dollars spent, the cities destroyed and the territories seized. the military, the lives lost, the refugees forced from their homes, the disruption to daily lives for ukrainians living in the shadow of putin s war, not to mention the spike in food and and energy costs beyond the theater of war, and these costs all continue to mount. this week, the u.s. pledged nearly $3 billion in additional security aid to ukraine. this comes as putin decreed in the size of the military as well. after half a year of war, what would it bring to bring this conflict to a close? i want to speak to john kirby now. admiral kirby, thank you for taking the time to be with us this morning. great to be with you, jim. first let s begin with the state of the war a half year in. the u.s. has given its biggest military package so far, and you increasingly hear from
cultivating power over a country spanning 11 time zones. but now we see a different vladimir putin, reckless, emotional, a gambler, a terrible bloody assault on ukraine despite failure and military costs. he even made nuclear threats. should americans be afraid? 92% do not trust putin, the highest negative rating pew research has ever recorded for a world leader? what is putin doing? what is he thinking? finding the answers could be a matter of life and death. the story begins at the moment he the first rose to power. december 31st, 1999. one minute until the 21st century begins. one minute until vladimir putin
u.s. military resources in the region, including, according to our colleague, the possibility of flying bomber flights over the region as well as ship visits to the black sea and also moving equipment and also potentially u.s. troops into poland, into romania, other neighboring countries as the u.s. tries to show what the potential military costs for vladimir putin would be if he launches this invasion that is so feared across the west right now. i think we should say that over the last few days we ve seen a real shift in tone from the biden administration, which just, you know, a week or two ago was really focused on the diplomatic avenue, even talk about what we could potentially give to russia if negotiations with them over some type of resolution were to come to fruition. now, the u.s. is still publicly leaving the door open to diplomacy with anthony blinken, the secretary of state, saying over the weekend that that is still the preferred option and
one that is available to president putin, but the emphasis from the biden administration at least publicly is on showing what the potential military costs would be as well as working with our allies to make sure military resources would be available in short order given the possibility of an invasion that the u.s. says now could be imminent, stephanie. mr. boughner, warships, aircrafts, troops, that s no kind of diplomacy i ve ever heard of. what s the kremlin saying about all this? they re essentially take nothing responsibility for this situation that we re all in right now. we also saw in this daily briefing some kind of concerning claims that the russians are seeing evidence of ukrainian preparations for an attack on eastern ukraine.
we were to be passive and allow the ukraine to be overwhelmed by russia, whether militarily or otherwise, what does that mean for latvia, lithuania, poland, hungary? a lot of countries around russia that used to be part of the soviet union. from everything we know, putin as a former kgb agent would like to create as much of the solve yet empire as much as he can. the biden administration is trapped in a situation where they have to find ways to both strengthen ukraine, not only american troops but supplies and training. they have to send signals to moscow that the sanctions will be so severe that combined with the military costs of trying to occupy ukraine is a big country. the combination of the two leads putin to decide to do something else for a while.