the aviation industry where we have regulations, where there s safety and security concerns, we need those mandatory minimums for cyber security to to really compel private businesses to take these actions. eric noonan, the ceo of cyber , she thank you , eric. really great to get your insights on what is a new front in international conflicts. thank you very much indeed. eric noonan, kevin johnson, thank you . u.s. troop strength in europe is now over 100,000, the largest number in nearly two decades. and that number. believe it or not, could actually be growing. a senior defense department official saying tuesday that defense secretary lloyd austin is not ruling out the deployment of more troops to eastern europe. and nato is said to be looking at beefing up troop strength there as well. joining us now is chris caselli ,lieutenant colonel and now a republican republican that is
staggering losses for the russian armed forces, which are themselves perhaps 1/5 the size of overall nato combat troop strength. in terms of kyiv, i think it s accurate that the russians, because they enjoy such a massive force will be able to encircle the city. it s a big city. it s about 3 million plus. and urban warfare, when you are fighting block by block and your enemy knows that terrain, ukrainians will know every shop, every alley, every doorway, every turn, the russians will be stumbling around a vast city. you re at a real disadvantage in there, so to say four to six weeks, to me, sounds on the short side, and i ll close with a very practical example, garrett, during the war in iraq, the first marine division, which
reinforce russians who may be on the back foot around the capital in the coming days. we will have to see. for the time being, here in the north of the country, the ukrainians are feeling a lot more bullish about their success. and this comes as the pentagon is saying today that russia has begun faring on the kyiv port town of mariupol from its ships in the sea. what more do we know that the fight for southern ukraine at this point? reporter: well, this is an area, there is a much deeper concern for the ukrainians. this is where the russians seem to be concentrating a lot of their fire power, their troop strength and of course, it is where the humanitarian disaster is at its most vivid. particularly in mariupol. when it comes under bombardment from weapons fired from battleships in the azov sea, the level of devastation will inevitably shoot up, if you ll excuse the pun there. it is really vicious.
history. and people need to understand how really deeply serious the crisis is going to become. all of our opponents are watching biden fall asleep, the are watching kamala harris laughing, and their thinking to themselves, this is the executive branch leadership. this is the commander-in-chief? those are signals of weakness when seen by people as tough as vladimir putin. sean: hooton sees an opportunity, i would argue that s why he is building up troop strength on the border with ukraine. president xi doesn t care what biden has to say. and then you have to ask the question, if the compromise. a lot of business, had a lot of business dealings with both
honest about the fact there were costs and risks and lives would have been lost. that s the type of discussion we need to have. but to jump down the president s throat because he actually had to make the decision, in an impossible situation does a grave disservice to this committee s ability to do effective and honest nonpartisan oversight. costs were going to be born here. there was no easy option. i do hope people remember that as we go through the questions and answers that will proceed. i yield to the ranking member. thank you, mr. chairman. general milley, was the d.o.d. in charge of making decisions about troop strength in this withdrawal, or were you in a support role?