that they took place ti ta place around the same time. thank you for being with us. thank you for having me. and let s bring in cnn s clarissa ward now, she s live on the ground in kyiv. you ve spoken with the foreign minister of ukraine as berman just mentioned. tell us what you learned here. reporter: so it was a really interesting conversation, brianna. i think there is no question that the foreign minister feels strongly that the u.s. and ukrainelockstep. we talked about the u.s. decision to withdraw the families of embassy personnel here. he said he was annoyed by that decision. that he felt it was premature. at the same time, though, when i asked him if the u.s. is overstating the threat of military aggression from russia, he said, no, not at all. and he welcomed the decision to potentially deploy or put on heightened alert those 8500 u.s. troops that would go to eastern europe. he said that it is important when you re dealing with putin to project strength, because p