nimble, to adjust our assistance and approach as the russian war aims have evolved and continue to do that over time depending on how things evolve on the battlefield. is the u.s. policy objective to defeat russia, can you say that definitively? our objective to enable the types of activity that allow ukrainians to win a victory in the battle for kyiv. russia intended to topple the ukrainian government. the ukrainians won that battle. we think that exact approach is going to be the way we follow through in the battles ahead and now focused on the south and east. also then, by that logic, is the broader policy goal to see ukraine defeat russia writ large? in our view, lost many of the war aims. intended to divide the west, and a nato alliance that s much more united than it s ever been and then to throw the ukrainian government, president zelenskyy continues. ukrainian democracy continues. russia more isolated.
of where america stands in terms of their policy, but also their long-term belief in ukraine. you look at the arc of this. you look where we were six, eight weeks ago. you look at the fact that zelenskyy was hiding by government buildings at dark, doing tiktok videos, sending them out to the people of ukraine, whispering that they re still there in darkness. that they weren t going anywhere. they were going to continue to hide. they were holding press conferences in bunkers. he was trying to survive day by day. many believing he was going to be killed at any moment. now you re seeing the united states secretary of state and secretary of defense going over and saying, we re here. america is here. we re not going anywhere. we re going to keep our support until vladimir putin and the russian military is put into a position and degraded to the degree they can no longer terrorize the people of ukraine. jonathan lemire, what a strong statement. you talked about the possibility
show evidence of one, potentially two mass graves outside of mariupol. has the u.s. assessed that we are, in fact, looking at mass graves or are these evidence of more war crimes, jon? we ve been quite clear we ve seen significant evidence of atrocities, war crimes. you ve heard very strong language coming out of our administration about the targeting of places like mariupol and elsewhere, that would be wholly consistent with how russia has been prosecuting this war from the beginning. have you confirmed those are new? new evidence of mass graves? nothing about the specific allegation but wholly consistent with everything we ve seen russia doing. as you well know, president zelenskyy asked the biden administration to declare russia a state sponsor of terrorism. what s the latest update as the administration prepared to do that at this point? we re clear to look at that, as we look at a whole range after other additional steps that we take to hold russia accountable for the cr
allowed to escape from. . russia hopes to capture the eastern donbas region and a russian commander now saying all of southern ukraine into neighboring moldova. president zelenskyy says u.s. secretary of state antony blinken and defense secretary lloyd austin are expected to arrive in kyiv today for talks on u.s. military assistance. we re going to begin our reporting this morning with a top adviser to president zelenskyy. igor shovka in kyiv this morning. welcome to meet the press. let s get right to you it because, right to it because we do have a lot to cover. president zelenskyy has said that he s expecting a visit by the secretaries of state and defense. what do they need to accomplish while they re on the ground so that their visit is more than just a photo op? first and foremost, it s the delivery of weapons. we are thankful for the u.s. administration for having the delivery, especially the last
the former soviet troops, the russians. by doing so, he would be able to say this is disputed territory. i think the ukrainians would have to say, as president zelenskyy has said he would, that we can negotiate. crimea and parts of eastern ukraine, perhaps, and draw a cease-fire line. let s have a cease-fire of this. this is if you re talking about the scenario you put out, the russians want to save face, have a permanency with occupied territory that could be settled the next five to ten years. walter, let s talk about what happened in france last night. sounds great, yeah. talk about how quickly history changes. here we had for four years donald trump trying to destroy nato. along with, obviously, vladimir putin, marine le pen talking about destroying nato.