Capabilities ukrainians need to defend their homeland against russian aggression. with that, happy to take your questions. first to reuters. you mentioned naval assets near sudan. how many naval assets and what are the expectation they would do? would they go into port and help assist people coming out, or what s the plan for that, and then a separate follow-up. sure, thanks. right now we have the uss truckston, off the coast of sudan, near port sudan. it will stay there awaiting further orders should it be needed to support. also en route is the u.s.s. polar, so again those capabilities will be there should we should we need too use them in support of state department s efforts. on the evacuation, does the secretary believe that the state department requested evacuation in a timely manner or does he believe that the request was made sooner, potentially more americans could have been moved
Drones over the route from khartoum to port sudan to protect convoys. dozens of u.s. citizens have joined the convoy, and setting up an international naval task force off the port sudan to help assist foreigners and americans trying to leave. also been helping with the international flights, the other nations that are flying in and collecting their embassy personnel. the planning for saturday s rescue took place here at the pentagon in the chairman of the joint chief s office in conjunction with joint special operations command at fort bragg. seal team 6 was asked to take the lead. this morning at 9:00 a.m. eastern, contingent of u.s. forces lifted off from djibouti and landed in ethiopia. chinooks refueled in ethiopia before flying three hours to khartoum. evacuation was conducted in one