what happened in his meeting with president biden, and what sort of promises were made, and what sort of promises can be kept? the alliance is sticking together, and the money and weapons have been pouring in along with still firm sanctions on moscow. but, with a u.s. presidential election looming, what can ukraine count on long term, and what can nato expect? are there contingencies for a second donald trump administration if it comes to that, and what about at other variable? republican lawmakers on the hill, the party is publicly split on supporting ukraine. some even calling for the u.s. to pull funding immediately. so as the president heads to helsinki to celebrate finland s entry and sweden s ascension, let s discuss what s to come. nbc correspondent josh lederman, in kyiv, kelly cobiella, and with me, new york times chief white house correspondent peter baker. everybody, welcome. josh, let me start with you. walk us through the meeting with president zelenskyy and th
baker. everybody, welcome. josh, let me start with you. walk us through the meeting with president zelenskyy and the assurances that were made? well, katy, the elephant in the room here for the ukrainians is that fear that you just alluded to, which is that as this war surpasses the 500-day mark that western support for ukraine is going to begin to erode, and so what the ukrainians and president zelenskyy got today was a commitment, not from nato, but actually from the g7 nations that they are going to make their security assistance long term. because over the last yearand a half or so, there have been billions provided to the ukrainians in weaponry and security assistance, but those have essentially been oneoffs, and now what ukrainians are getting is a commitment for the first time on paper that this is going to be a recurring thing, the u.s. and its allies are going to continue for the long haul to provide security assistance, weaponry, economic assistance, help with building
up their defense sector, and the idea here is for that to be a bridge to nato membership. since they re not getting into nato now, what the western nations can do is signal to moscow that support for ukraine is going to continue to flow, and that therefore, even if it s not part of the collective defense agreement that it is a de facto member of this western community. zelenskyy also got a commitment from western nations here in vilneas, that they are going to begin training on f-16s as early as next month. the big question is who is going to provide the f-16s. no country has stepped up to say they will be the first country to hand over aircraft. didn t we already start training pilots in the u.s.? that s a good question. there was a test run in arizona where a couple of ukrainian pilots were put through exercises to test out how long it would take for them to get up