against top democrats for leading the trump impeachment by kicking them off the house intelligence committee while ignoring george santos campaign financial possible violations and false resume? we will have the latest tit for tat from capitol hill. good day, i m andrea mitchell in washington. president biden is about to announce a major shift in his policy for arming ukraine. he is sending advanced u.s. tanks that the pentagon has been insisting cannot be properly maintained on the battlefield. what s changed? we see the president walking into the roosevelt room. 11 months since russia s invasion of ukraine. 11 months in which ukrainian people have showed putin and the world the full force of their courage and the determination to live free. through every single step of this horrific war, the american people have been strong and unwavering in their support. democrats and republicans in congress have stood together. the united states worked with our allies and partners a
sweden is donated infantry fighting vehicles. italy is giving artillery. denmark and estonia are sending howitzers. lithuania is providing anti-aircraft guns. finland announced its largest package of security assistance to date. i was asked a while ago what did i think was going to happen, and i said let putin know, he thought he was going to end up with europe. he has the nato-ization of europe. we sent more than 3,000 armored vehicles, more than 8,000 artillery systems, more than 2 million rounds of artillery and ammunition and more than 50 advanced multi-launch rocket systems. anti-shipment air defense systems. all to help counter ukraine s brutal aggression that s happening because of russia. today s announcement builds on the hard work and commitment
the battlefield here in eastern ukraine? kirby told you, it would be many months in the case of the american tanks. i think that shows that this decision to send abrams tanks is as much about diplomacy as it is about the battlefield. because this does clear the way for germany to send its own leopard 2s, other nato allies in europe to send theirs. there are some 2,000 leopards here in europe deployed by militaries here. it is very likely that those will be the first tanks to actually get to the battlefield. ukraine hopes they will get here in time to head off a potential russian offensive, possibly in the coming weeks. raf sanchez, thank you so much. stay safe there, of course. general mccaffrey, good to have you here today. you are an infantryman. you taught at west point, been on the battlefields. what haven t i asked? what am i missing here? well, look, president bidn
civilian contractor support can maintain these abrams. they re not classified. we could send one to russia rapped in a red bow. they couldn t manufacture one in ten years. a lot of this one battalion is inconsequential on this battlefield. they need an armored division in short order before the spring. we could do that in short order. ukrainian experienced tank crew can get fully qualified in 30 days. this is not complex machinery from an operator s perspective. again, there s a lot of diplomatic strange things going on. europe, with its massive economy, with its massive amount of military power, is
trying to manage escalation risk with russia throughout this process. doesn t want to be providing heavy weapon systems and f-16s that the ukrainians could use to hit targets inside russia. as they have been doing throughout this war, they are calibrating the ukrainian needs and the ukrainian requests, the european appetite to provide more, and their own concerns about escalation risk with putin that could lead to something like a nato/russia exchange or the use of a nuclear weapon. we are continuing to be in this three dimension strategy between ukraine, managing escalation and trying to get the europeans to provide more so that it s not just the united states putting in a significant amount of weapons, which by the way, may be as general mccaffrey said, not decisive on the battlefield, but they are depleting u.s. stocks. it requires planning, training programs. i think they wanted to get that lined up. they wanted to be seen that the alliance is making major