still concentrated to the north of the the city and not making significant progress to the city sentser in the last 24 to 48 hours. and richard, to kristen welker, on this whole subject of the migs, we just heard secretary blinken speaking about this. i can tell you the state department and the pentagon were completely blind sided by poland s decision. the vice president was on route there today. en route to poland right now. we were being told last night she s there to salute poland and the other nato allies to be lock step on decisions. and now a decision on sending polish migs to a u.s. base in germany to go to ukraine. the pentagon has spoken about this. saying the surface-to-air missiles would shoot down anything that comes in their
poland later today. you have president zelenskyy over and over again asking for these planes. he wants to keep this in the conversation. he s also asking, as you know, for a no-fly zone and that s something the biden administration said is a nonstarter because they don t want to intensify this crisis and war unfolding in ukraine. that is the back drop of the vice president s trip to poland. the second trip to poland in the last month and the broad bowls are to reaffirm united states commitment to its allies and rally support to intensify this pressure campaign on putin, try to get vladimirputen to back down. but so far that hasn t worked. it is going to boil what was already a complicated visit. we see pictures of her leaving andrew s air base for poenld and she ll then go to romania.
airspace. you could describe it as a suicide mission if anyone tries to fly to ukraine or ukrainian pilots fly them. the u.s. is blind sided. they were completely blind sided. as you mapped out very well. it s complicated the vice president s trip and what you heard from the secretary of state was a real explanation for why they say there are so many challenges. as you just laid out a number of them. but the big picture is concern it will escalate the confrontation. you heard the secretary of state say this could lead to more deaths, blood shed and a prolonged war. and said they re still talking to poland and the vice president is going to address this issue. it s going to be front and center when she arrives in
provide lethal support to ukraine. at the same time, poland has really embarrassed the u.s. there s no way the u.s. wanted to have migs on a u.s. base in germany because that would, according to u.s. officials, directly put us in the line of fire and in direct contact and risks of starting with the president said. he doesn t want u.s. verses russia. look, the process of actually transferring migs to ukraine is a complicated one and there are a lot of different ways you can do that. poland could get the migs to ukraine directly. they proposed a different path. again, it comes from the best of intensions. we re in a situation where all of us feel compelled to help ukraine against what russia is doing and we re all looking for ways to continually apply pressure on moscow.
it s certainly an awkward moment for her when we re in serious disagreement with our polish allies. and today i spoke to the u.s. ambassador about the decision to send fighters to a u.s. base in germany. right now the good news story at nato is all allies are constantly assessing the situation on the ground in ukraine and all of us have the best intentions. we all want to provide support to ukraine in the form of lethal assistance. many are doing that in real time and in close contact with the folks on the ground in ukraine. poland has been looking at the possibility of sending migs to ukraine. we have raised questions about that. i think we re continuing to be in conversation with them. the bottom line is the unity inside this alliance is rock solid and we will continue to