reluctant to continue supporting this war in that their own fears seem to be rising, fears the war could spill over into the rest of europe, fears that any sort of nuclear confrontation could literally blow into their country and that kind of thing means that in some senses scholz s hands are tied. he has to make a good argument before every tranche of aid he hands out. biden is facing the same thing and yet biden must also be asking the u.s. has given roughly two times as much as all of europe combined in terms of aid to ukraine. he has to be asking germany what else can you ante up. and what would be most crucial now, general, as we talk about what s happening in bakhmut, the description there is that it is an urban style of warfare, that ukrainians, they say they re committed to it, but
that is significant. it shows us that the ukrainian air defense systems as much as they need the patriot systems that are to come online shortly and ukrainian forces are being trained on even now have already seen an extraordinary improvement in their air defense systems. it is several hundred russian fighter planes they say they ve taken down now and they point out that every russian fighter plane on their territory is a legitimate target. that was just over when it comes to the air defensive there s a lot more to do, but this is one of the signs that it has improved and it is working. russia s offensive has been under way, we re told, since early this year. melissa bell and phil mattingly, thank you both. joining us to discuss further analyst kim dojer, senior managing editor at requesting the military times and general
peter zwack. germany is arguably the most important player here aside from the united states. it s europe s largest economy and has been criticized for hesitating in providing some of the higher scale military assistance. obviously they ve increased their aid and they are sending those leopard tanks. with the president of the united states, is there concern going into it that germany may remain hesitant in the months ahead? this is the chance for the chancellor to explain directly to biden why he dragged his feet on the leopard tanks which delayed the u.s. announcement it would send in abrams tanks. germany like biden,a sense, is facing a situation where the german people are growing
remarkably well, but it is tired with the worn out mig 29s, and the 16s and missiles will add a lot. and at this point, the russians have been so vicious in the aggression, anything along that type including long range missiles are completely justified. no, i think that they won t be per se a game-changer, but it is going to make it a whole lot harder for russians to get too close with the cruise missiles and other capability, and the f-16s have a very good ground attack capability. we will be watching closely. brigadier general peter zwack and doug brinkley and david, we are grateful to have you join us. and now, on a new scale of
The Russian Foreign Ministry has put 77 US citizens on the stop list, including a number of state governors, federal departments, and companies involved in arms supplies to Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday