have occurred in the lastey 18 months we ve moved that wasov joe biden s first sit downed interview in one hundred and eighteen days. and despite a flurry of well, nothing but softball questions from a democratic activist pretending to be a late nighted comedian, biden still struggleia to communicate he could barelyy get words out. he had noo answersword for the economic problems we are a lot worset got today. now inflation is up yet again to an all new forty one year high, eight point six percent. the the cost of food is up ten point one percent. o the cost of housing 70%f rent is up in some places as high as 20 percent. household energy bills are up a whopping nineteen point one percent. and meanwhile the average cost for a gallon off gas has nowd more than doubled since biden took over as president. now over five dollars a gallonev nationwide for the first time ever. remember when he first became president on day one you were only paying two dollars and thirty nine cents f
that s possible. that s vladimir putin s plan. he holds out as long as he can in the defense right now. they don t have to go into offensive operations. we re getting into the fall shortly and rainy season will make some of those roads impassable. it will make military operations much more difficult. next you know it s winter. now it s springtime. in the united states, we re full on with the presidential election. we ll have politicians arguing whether or not we should support this. right now ukraine needs probably two to three years of commitment from western allies if they re going to have any success with regard to trying to take some of their land back. their commitment right now has been six to eight months at a time. yeah. i want to look forward a little bit here because we have the first batch of u.s. abrams tanks approved to go over there. they won t get until the fall of course. to set context for our viewers, how much of a difference does that actually make when it arrive
that s nothing like the number dying in ukraine every day, but it is a sign that not everything is going to vladimir putin s plan. sarah rainsford, bbc news, kyiv. 0ne one other issue that russia is dealing with: russia has blamed ukraine for the explosions which reportedly killed four people in the city of belgorod, which lies near the border with ukraine. the accusation has been dismissed by ukraine. belgorod is a russian city located north of kharkiv ukraine s second city and has been attacked on several occasions since the russian invasion started in february. 0ur russia editor steve rosenberg is in belgorod and explained how the security situation there has significantly deteriorated. one of the justifications vladimir putin came up with when he launched with a special military operation, as he calls it, in ukraine, was the need to protect russians, to keep russians safe.
three men who volunteered to fight when putin invaded their country. the russians like tactic to destroy all of the city, all of the village, totally. everyone is afraid to die. everyone is afraid of explosions. we want to protect our families, friends, wives, from terrible scenes that russians give our citizens in mariupol. we cannot let this happen again. so you d go back to the donbas? we haven t any choice. we must do it. there is now deadly fallout from this war in russia, too. moscow says these blasts are from shooting down ukrainian missiles fired across the border. four civilians were killed. that s nothing like the number dying in ukraine every day, but it is a sign that not everything is going to vladimir putin s plan.
we haven t any choice. we must do it. there is now deadly fallout from this war in russia, too. moscow says these blasts are from shooting down ukrainian missiles fired across the border. four civilians were killed. that s nothing like the number dying in ukraine every day, but it is a sign that not everything is going to vladimir putin s plan. sarah rainsford, bbc news, kyiv. russia has blamed ukraine for the explosions which reportedly killed four people in the city of belgorod, which lies near the border with ukraine. the accusation has been dismissed by ukraine. belgorod is a russian city located north of kharkiv ukraine s second city and has been attacked on several occasions since the russian invasion started in february. 0ur russia editor steve rosenberg is in belgorod and explained how the security situation there has significantly deteriorated.