Hes one of the more influential officials in the ukraine, correct . Yes. I believe hes one of the few that stands with lutsenko and the zelensky administration. Yes, thats correct. Look k back at hing back a , hindsight, who was doing what . He was out to get him. He said some nasty things. Sometimes that happens on social media. And are you asking me whether it is appropriate, probably not. But i would say that minister ivankoff has been as well as others both in lutsenko and
zelensky administration have been a good partner to the United States as i think i told you before. Hes a practical man and looking for partners and getting the job done. I am shocked that social media would be the sight of negative comments. You certainly can understand that the president aware of the ministers statement and aware of what mr. Lutsenko was up to and these other elements that we have discussed, there are forms of reasonable bases to wonder why there are influential elements to the ukrainian establ
remember putin has lost the war for ukraine. i think before we got donbas and think about the next battle, we need to remember that his original intention, which was to swallow up all of ukraine, because ukrainians are just russians with accents. he failed at that. he failed to chase away zelenskyy. he failed to take kyiv. battle of kyiv will be a historic moment in ukrainian nationhood and ukrainian history books and even as you just showed, he has not taken any major city yet. little ones like you just mentioned and maybe mariupol soon, but so far, he s failed at his major objectives in this war, but that doesn t mean he won t fail in the battle for donbas. from what i understand from talking to both u.s. and ukrainian officials, everybody s gearing up for it. they re ready. they think it will be a big fight. ukrainians want more weapons. the u.s. is trying to provide them with more weapons and they
appears to be a shrinking delta between what the ukrainians are asking for and what we re willing to give? we ve had a lot of pentagon reporters report over the weeks that there s a diminishing distinction being made by the biden administration between offensive and defensive weapons systems. well, nicole, i ll be quite frank with you. i ve always had a little bit of trouble desiefing between offensive and defensive weapons, but we certainly have been in talks with the ukrainians about what they need, and that list has changed over time, as they ve worked through this fight, and now we re looking at a fight in the eastern area of ukraine, flatter, more amenable to tank war, so i think you ve also seen and this was changing the calculation too the atrocities committed by the russians, i think, have really
well, i think you re spot on. the intelligence assessments of what the russians were planning to do and what was happening with them massing at the border, some of the false flag operations that the intelligence community projected, and i think thereby undermining russia s ability to prosecute those have been really, really important to this effort. i think that most of us would have thought that the russian army would have performed far better than it has, and i was in ukraine about a week before putin s invasion of ukraine, and talking to the minister of defense and to president zelenskyy about what they needed, and they assured me at that time that they could fight the russians, that they were fully capable of doing that, that they needed weapons and support from the u.s. and nato, but that the ukrainian people were going to fight this aggression, and certainly, that has proven to be true. what is your sense about what
reports, has seized control of kremmina and nbc news has learned from multiple u.s. officials that the biden administration is preparing to announce another substantial military aid package for ukraine this week, similar in size they say to the $800 million package announced last week and expected to include more artillery and tens of thousands more artillery rounds likely to be critical for this war over the donbas. joining us now, former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul. how are you feeling today about not just what ukraine is suffering at the hands of russia, but how they are sort of situated as this battle commences in earnest in terms of what they have asked for and what we have given them so far in military assistance? first, the preamble is