any moment now we expect to see president biden welcome one of america s strongest nato allies to the white house. the meeting is russia s invasion of ukraine is just beyond the one-year mark. the pentagon has announced another $400 million aid package for kyiv. phil mattingly is live. we ll start with you and what you know about the president s meeting with chancellor schultz. it s a critical meeting and sounds like something with of meeting when it pertains to this war with the allies and alliance that s been together. it stead very fast. there is probably no more critical leader at this point than chancellor schultz. this is a relationship. the two leaders get along quite well. no staff component between the two leaders who have been critical to an alliance that has produced a significant evolution in terms of the types of weapons, the capabilities that they provided over the course of the year. there have been points where the germans haven t gone as far and throughou
that perhaps is something that biden would feel most comfortable explaining to scholz one-on-one. we just learned the attorney general, merrick garland, has made an unannounced trip to ukraine. this comes after we saw the treasury secretary, janet yellen, make an unannounced trip there as well. we saw and learned during her trip that there were $10 billion of aid through september that has been pledged to ukraine, humanitarian aid. we ll see what comes out of the trip from attorney general merrick garland. just getting that in. general, on china and their value, just the inverse of the question i asked about what the ukrainians would need, how would what the russians want and what the chinese are potentially, if they are, able to or willing to offer lethal aid, how would those reconcile? what do you think china is willing to give if they are?
reluctant to continue supporting this war in that their own fears seem to be rising, fears the war could spill over into the rest of europe, fears that any sort of nuclear confrontation could literally blow into their country and that kind of thing means that in some senses scholz s hands are tied. he has to make a good argument before every tranche of aid he hands out. biden is facing the same thing and yet biden must also be asking the u.s. has given roughly two times as much as all of europe combined in terms of aid to ukraine. he has to be asking germany what else can you ante up. and what would be most crucial now, general, as we talk about what s happening in bakhmut, the description there is that it is an urban style of warfare, that ukrainians, they say they re committed to it, but
very clear on the energy side and obviously in terms of the evolution of the weapons systems and what they ve been willing to provide, maintaining over the top a very clear umbrella of maintaining unity, staying steadfast in that. that was why what chancellor scholz said was so important in making very clear as he has repeatedly but doing it once again as there are a lot of murmurs about how is this going to end? there needs to be an end game. these discussions need to start, making very clear, as he has, they are with ukraine as long as it takes. there s no end game in sight right now and that could be a very long time. once again reiterating that as he sat next to president biden. and thus far, oren liebermann, the bulk of the military aid has been coming from the united states, obviously more economic stress on europe given their proximity to the fighting and taking in a lot of refugees as well. evenly though germany has agreed to send these tanks, europe is scrambling to find abo
new weapons capabilities and weapons systems, it s the nuts and bolts of what the ukrainians need in this moment at in time to maintain, ammunition for artillery, the types of tools that can repair vehicles. it doesn t seem like big picture items. the defense industrial base not just in europe but also in the u.s. has been winnowed over the course of the last year. a big part of the conversation between the two leaders today, guys. military experts have been telling us it not necessarily the tanks and the planes that ukraine needs right now. it is the ammunition that they need. let s go to kyiv. security of the systems is going to be coming. where it goes is going to make a big difference here. it could be compromised. there s a critical bridge, the last remaining route out of the