line of attack or course of action the russians could choose to take. they could also choose to move in other parts of ukraine as well. the last point i would make, and i know this has been a subject of a fair amount of back and forth between the administration and the press over the course of the past week, we are firmly convined the russians, should they decide to move forward with the invasion are looking forward to a false pretext, a false flag, something they create and blame on the ukrainians as a trigger for military action, and we are calling that out publicly because we believe if russia chooses to do that, they should be held to account, and the world should not believe the false flag they created should be cause to go into ukraine. you said you did not want to say putin has made a decision, but does the united states
48 hours to lead to your new concerns? when i appeared on the sunday shows last weekend i made the point that we were in the window, that russian military action could begin any day now, and that remains true, it could remain any day now and it could occur before the olympics have ended. i will not get into intelligence information, but if you look at the disposition of forces in belarus and in russia on the other side of the ukrainian border from the north, from the east, the russians are in a position to be able to mount a major military action in ukraine any day now, and for that reason we believe that it is important for us to communicate to our allies and partners, to the ukrainians and to the american citizens who are still there. i want to be crystal clear though, we are not saying a final decision has been taken by president putin, but what we are seeing is we have a sufficient level of concern based on what we are seeing on the ground and
kyiv, theoretically. they could interrupt cell service. you won t be able to get an airplane or any commercial planes because they would stop because of the insurance considerations, and we have seen that before in and around iraq and afghanistan, and no question to american civilians, people sometimes tend to not believe these warnings, and some listen to russian propaganda and say it s the americans and the ukrainians and nato who are precipitating this, but he emphasized any deployments so far have been to defend and detour a russian aggression. i rarely have seen this kind of warning in past military engagements where whether we were about to do it, or whether we were anticipating an attack.
politician, and so he wants the help, he wants the military support, but he doesn t want to acknowledge the vulnerability of his own government. one of the scenarios, one of the most likely scenarios is whatever russia does do, if they do take military action, even if they don t do something as aggressive as occupying and taking the capitol is they will still try through cyber and propaganda and through false flags and protests that they will try to undercut the zelensky government, bring it down and replace it with more, you know, pro moscow ukrainians, of which there are many, particularly from the east, which is already, you know, for all intents and purposes, russian territory. jake sullivan was also reiterating what we heard from this administration, that russia would have a false flag, a
i will wait until okay. thank you for taking my question. did the u.s. wait too long to arm ukraine especially did they wait too long to move u.s. forces to nato countries? does the president still view the idea of preinvasion sanctions as a stupid question? so as to the question of waiting too long on arming the ukrainians, over the course of the past year, the united states provided more than half a billion, $650 billion in assistance to ukraine and that s more given by any president at anytime and that began more than a year ago under the presidency of joe biden. we have made good on the commitment to get those into the hands of ukrainian weapons, and