completely. they are not saying whether or not that meeting between secretary of state blinken and the russian foreign minister is going to still happen on thursday in geneva. that s what everybody was locking ahead to, and i think also the big question is are they still able to pursue a path of diplomacy based on what s going to happen today and based on the speech that putin gave that made it pretty clear how he feels about ukraine and that things will not change in his view of how he believes this should end up. a senior administration official just talking to reporters said that they are going to continue to pursue diplomacy until the first tanks roll. that is the way that they are viewing this, wolf, saying that up until the last minute they are going to try to go down this path, though you ve seep the extensive efforts that the french have been taking and the french taking on this matter. they haven t changed much. russia has only continued to build up its forces so, of course th
is where we have seen some of the fiercest fighting where the russians have been trying to come down. to your point about the ukrainian forces, we have seen them putting up a significant resistance. we heard praise of them by military experts and officials in nato. they have managed it appears to at least slow the russian advance and inflict significant casualties on the russians. but they are alone in this fight. president biden made clear quite some time ago that no americans were going to be coming here and fighting. nato said the same. this is not a nato country, so ukrainians are alone in the fight. that leaves me a good question for orrin leiberman. he talked about missile defense and so forth, orrin. there have been conflicting reports about who has control of ukrainian airspace right now. is it the russians? who is it? so let s first talk about why this is so important.
as russian troops move in the pentagon is deploying 7,000 u.s. troops to europe and moving u.s. military assets further east. including sending six f-35 fighter jets in. the very latest from the pentagon. orrin, explaining the latest moves. reporter: deploying troops from the u.s. to europe and troops within europe up to nato s eastern flank with a two-pronged goal. the first is to reassure nato allies to bolster their own defense capabilities. the u.s. will help defend every inch of nato terd. it s obvious the u.s. has been unable to deter putin. the goal is to make sure he doesn t look, plan or act one inch past ukraine into nato territory and that s why these troops are headed there. the latest announcement of 7,000
break. and we re watching some of it unfolding, the video sent earlier. the pentagon says the u.s. will provide additional security assistance to ukraine. kyiv is under siege now, so what is the plan, orrin? reporter: well, the pentagon isn t about to put out in great detail what it s going to do to make sure ukraine has help. i don t think you ll find anyone in the u.s. government is willing to do that right now for security reasons. u.s. secretary john kirby said the leth and nonlethal aid that s not in the past tense, strongly suggesting efforts are ongoing. of course that raises the question how exactly did you get it in? before russia invaded ukraine it was flown in on usa aircraft, u.s. military planes. that s not happening now. what other options are there? through the border perhaps. we know poland has said it sent
international red cross. putin would have to allow for them to be established. so far russian forces are firing artillery and have not orrin honored any of those agreements, arthel. arthel: yeah. putin can t commit to a no-fly zone to protect humanitarian pathways, you know, russian and ukraine officials are scheduled to hold more talks sunday excuse me, monday, which is tomorrow. that ll be the third round. but you may remember that president zelenskyyed had asked to speak directly with president putin, you know, president to president. so without that kind of direct dialogue, can there be safe passage for civilian evacuees or a diplomatic end to this war? reporter: it really is all up to president putin, and there was an important conversation with him from the israeli prime minister today. and so the reason that i think blinken is going to france is that the french president has been in constant cabot with putin. constant contact with