the pols and romanians and see how the reasonable process is being done if their country. are they getting the humanitarian assistance they need. we found them well cared for and getting humanitarian aid like food and medicine deep into east ukraine remains a serious logistic problem. for those families that have gotten out of ukraine, they are being exceedingly well cared for by the pols and romanians. they are situated with dual families. it s an amazing outpouring of support? it s amazing to see it in person. it s one on news to bring you images via video but to see it in person and humans helping humans, right, their neighbors likes that? yes. it s amazing. in fact, 2.5 million ukrainians poured into poland in the first weeks of the conflict. now a half million have gone back into ukraine as the situation in the western half of the country has stabilized,
ukraine. who s left if they come in? and how does ukraine not become a member of nato before this decade is over? you re absolutely right. it s hard to see what the distinction would be. you know, the ukrainians are looking at that themselves. they said we used to be part of the soviet union. so did the baltic states, estonia, latvia and lithuania. and the pols right next door are secure and confident in their ability to be protected by nato. what s the difference? and nato would be honored in some real sense to have ukraine in. i mean ukraine has shown it can fight the russians to a standstill. can the russians threaten finland and sweeten out of this? unlikely, i think.
which he s engaged in, i think it s going to change the rules of the game, i think, for us i would hope for us, and when president zelenskyy says give me the weapons, i need words, yes, but i need weapons more. i think this changes the calculus. it should change the calculus on the ground where we provide president zelenskyy with air power, something he has called for for some time now, and hopefully, that would do something to change events on the ground, and the only way we re ever going to see any kind of negotiation if possible is if we change the calculus on the ground where putin is losing and zelenskyy is winning. so the air power discussion a few weeks ago that i think the americans quashed was that the polish government was going to give the ukrainians these soviet era migs that the ukrainians know how to fly. but the pols wanted them to take off from the nato base, the u.s.
been through in their lives and history, knowing too much about what the ukrainians are going through right now and really kind of a sense of connection perhaps they couldn t have with any other country. yeah, that s very well put, the rhyming element of this. i mean, of course, as you know, mika, the border, the polish border and ukrainian border have waxed and waned through history and through the 20th century. rights. parts of what is now ukraine used to be part of poland and there s an enmeshing of the two cultures that is very rare for any two countries. ironically, there s probably more enmeshing between poland and ukraine in spite of what putin thinks than there is between ukraine and russia. so i m sure that there s this very strong feeling amongst pols not only are they part of our culture, but there but for the grace of god go i because poland
of income coming from their former business endeavors. others are simply trying to make do with less. the polish government is now giving pols who host ukrainian refugees in their home 40 per day per refugee but it is an amount that only adds up to a little less than $10 here in the u.s. mika. all right. nbc s josh lederman. thank you so much for that report. ed luce, not to complicate this, but the overall open arms from poland to the ukrainians is a tremendous, remarkable story. i just know from hearing from my family over there, i mean the embassy is just being besieged with calls and they re trying to coordinate all of the different efforts to help. i am wondering if you think that what is driving this is that just too much history is rhyming here with what the pols have