course? i think the president going to kyiv doesn t settle that problem once and for all. ideally, it would have been great had he shown up, you know, with senator mcconnell or somebody like that who is strongly in support of the war. again, it sends a reassuring message to ukraine about american staying power. which, jonathan, is critical for europe. europe has followed behind and with the united states for the most part. this is leading from ahead, and that is what is required in this instance. we are now past 6:00. welcome to morning joe at this morning. joe, mika and willie have the day off. i want to bring in katty kay, special u.s. correspondent for bbc news, into our live, rolling coverage of this presidents day and president biden s surprise trip to ukraine, one meant to show a real symbol of solidarity, katty, with kyiv, as it has weathered russia s invasion now for 12 months. yeah, jonathan, what a day for us to kick off presidents s day, to see these images.
what are the stakes for ukrainians who are living through this war? reporter: so we re almost in a new war. a year ago, when this war was launched, there was speculation it d be a limited war. perhaps putin who had, if you ll remember, 100,000 troops, 190,000 at one stage, positioned on three sides of the ukraiian border, that it d be a limited conflict. vladimir putin would send in the tanks and troops, and he d take a piece of the east out here, potentially linking up eastern ukraine with the crimean peninsula. putin decided to go for the maximum option. he had air strikes, commando raids and tanks streaming across the country. it was a colossal failure. logistically, it didn t work. the supply chain wasn t there. tanks started breaking down. the soldiers were being
largely correct, which is inflation we re seeing is a by-product of 19 months of covid, a lot of pent-up demand. you know, people biking on pelotons and sweat pants. weren t traveling. weren t buying stuff. holiday sales last year eh, okay. a lot of people who want a lot of stuff and a global supply chain wasn t ready to supply it. do people believe it? feeling, fear of inflation and reality of inflation. right now the feeling is absolutely more powerful than the reality. and get out of our sweat pants, latest government data showing retail purchases increased 1.7% in october. biggest monthly gain since march. what do those numbers tell you and what they signal for the holiday season? right. that s back to that reality of a lot of people are buying a lot of stuff. we had a supply chain, a covid-era supply chain that just