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00:00Mr. Secretary thank you so much for joining us. I guess my first question is is there anything from your point of view to the United States and its allies could do to relieve some of the pressure on the civilians over there. Because it seems to me that's where the focus is right now. Well first of all David good to be with you again. I would say to set the context we know at this point the conflict is in a stalemate. Russia appears to have failed to meet any of its major objectives. And so now they have resorted to these typical Russian playbook and that is a siege of city cities and indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilians and an attempt to starve them out deny them food water and power as a way to put pressure on the Zelinsky government. So I think what can we do is continue not only to provide arms and ammunition and all the different weapons systems that the Ukrainians need but also to try and get food and water and medical supplies into the innocent civilians who are trapped in these cities. What do we do Mr. Secretary if anything at all for someplace like Mariupol. Because in Kiev it's not surrounded. It may well be possible to get some of the humanitarian assistance in as well as armaments overground but I'm not sure that's possible without an airdrop sort of like the Berlin airlift. I think there are clever ways to get stuff in on the ground. The Ukrainians have proved quite resourceful at doing so. I think we need to explore all those ways. It appears right now with the Russians having having a presence in the skies and our unwillingness to enter that airspace that an airdrop would not be feasible. But we need to find any number of ways to include look at a humanitarian pure appeal through the UN the Red Cross and others to provide supplies medical supplies to the people of Ukraine. We certainly are for providing armaments and continue to do that as well as humanitarian assistance. Is there anything more we can do to increase the pressure on the Russian forces without escalating this. Yes I mean we continue continue to of course provide arms and ammunition the anti-tank and aid to ship missiles which I don't think I've seen have been delivered yet. I think we should deliver those I mentioned a couple of weeks ago providing them with advanced air defense systems. So today there are reports that we may provide them with essay aid systems which are ground mobile medium range systems that will help them defend their airspace. And then I think again continue to provide targeting information and surveillance information that will help the Ukrainians on the battlefield. Look we've had a big change in the last 24 48 hours. We're now hearing that the Ukrainians have not only defended their cities but they are recapturing towns and recapturing ground taken by the Russians. And at the same time we hear that there's a lot of unrest in Russia itself. People speculating about Putin's continued crackdown. What that what that might mean for him and his government. That would be good news if that fell.

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Putin's Army Failing in Ukraine, Ex-U.S. Defense Chief Says

Russia has failed to achieve any of its major objectives in Ukraine, former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday. He says the war is at a stalemate. He speaks on “Balance of Power With David Westin.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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