opposed the advanced air defense capabilities that we provide to allies both in europe and east asia. >> what is their position? say if they're teaming up with china on thad and our efforts to contain the nuclear threat in north korea, what are they doing in other areas? teaming up with china on freedom of navigations operations as well and opposing our efforts to provide rules based governance according to international law? >> short, i don't see them teaming up with china on freedom of navigation although clearly the chinese and other great powers are watching to see what russia is able to get away with. >> russia recorded our operations in south china sea, have they. >> has russia supported our -- >> correct. >> no. >> they're taking same position on china of freedom of navigation operations? >> senator, i would characterize it as they have not taken a

vocal position one way or the other. they have largely remained in the background on this. >> so i -- dr. carpenter, while i'm with you i guess i can follow up, and we can have that conversation as well what we're doing to push russia to implement 2270 to agree to a true commitment to a nuclear-free peninsula. want to talk about a report that couple out several months ago, i'm sure you're familiar with it. this is rand report, looking at attar kel, russian invasion can overrun nato in the 60 hours. this was published in december 2015. i'm sure you're familiar with this report. has this assessment changed in your mind since this report was first published? >> senator, i would say russia clearly possesses time distance advantage if it were decide to be an aggressor in the baltic states and that poses certain limitations that we would have to overcome in terms of our

ability to defend our nato allies. we're making investment through eri, otherwise to precisely have forces prepositioned along with war-fighting equipment so we are better able to deter russian aggression in the first place. >> has this assessment in your mind changed substantial tiffly tiffly -- substantially since october of 2014? >> we looked cale live at our plans and looked carefully at geography of baltic nation and precisely advantage russia has and we're taking steps to mitigate. >> i think you're saying nothing has changed since this report substantively are you saying your reports agree with the assessment of the rand report? >> senator, i would say by the end of 2017 when we implement all the eri funding that is coming online we'll be much better poised to address the challenges and much better poised to deter russian

aggression in that region than we are now. i don't know that we -- >> 2017 until we're better poised to deter the russian threat? >> well, senator, we're prepositioning equipment on a sort of, ongoing basis. i don't know that we're significantly more advanced now than when the rand report came out but i'm confident by the end of 2017 when we have an additional armored brigade combat team worth of force posture on the eastern flank of the alliance that we will be. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you both for being here and for your ongoing efforts. as part of russia's campaign in eastern europe and the baltics and ukraine, has been to produce disinformation. they're spending a lot of money on rt television, and lots of other ways to get their message out and into parts of eastern

europe. can you talk a little bit more about what we're doing to respond to that propaganda? i don't know which one of you wants to address that? >> thanks, senator. well, as you know this has been a line of effort that we've been working on very hard with members of the congress and the senate since 2014. the total appropriation now, state department, usaid, bbg, broadcast board of governors on u.s. side is about $100 million to counter russian propraganda. that money as you know goes for a number of things from clean, honest russian language programing, that bbg is now putting out every day, expansion of radio free europe, raid dough dpoa, to $88 million we use in the state department aid money to support civil society, independent media, journalist training, including outside of russia for those russian

journalists who have fled. we're also doing quite a bit to bolster programing inside of russia to the extent that we can. this pales in comparison to the 400 million at least that russia is spending and frankly, to the levels that we spent during the cold war on these kind of things which were over a billion dollars a year in the days of old usia. >> can you talk about a little bit about the substance of what we're doing and who we're engaging to work with us on the content? is it journalists who are, or reporters who have fled russia who are helping us look what kind of messages that we're using? are others engaged in that effort with us? >> i will be 30,000 feet, if you will allow me to protect those that participate in these programs, many of whom depend on that protection. >> right.

>> but we conduct training programs at various locations in europe for journalists who either fled who have come out to get training and are planning to go back in. we support a number of russian language news organizations in the baltic states and other periphery countries that are designed either to address russian-speaking populations in those home countries and counter russian propaganda or beam back in. we obviously support russian language programming in ukraine which has some impact also in russia as well. and then this good portion that goes to bbg and boa programing which is u.s. government free news content. we also do quite a bit to pull together efforts of the e.u., u.k., baltic states, central europeans, through consultation, through sharing of programing, et cetera. >> thank you. you raised ukraine and obviously there have been a number of

questions around what's happening in ukraine and russia, russia's failure to complain with minski 2, there were period where some countries in europe didn't appreciate extent failure on russia's part and viewed it more as failure of ukraine. i wonder if you could talk about where we are respect to how the e.u. is viewing misn sk-ii and put pressure on russia to comply? >> i said we're cautiously optimistic that the e.u. countries roll over sanctions at end of june, they see what we see, minsk is far from being implemented in any of its components. we intensified our own diplomacy

with the president's meeting in hanover with president hollande and chancellor merkel to support what those countries are doing to try to get minsk fully complied with. they are pushing on two fronts, both to negotiate a fair political decentralization deal for dannbas which does not cross the line creating a permanent cats paw or enclave of russia in in ukraine. we are trying to commit the russia made in the osce pull back, and weapons. at one point i said it is this security package that is not being implemented well. we've had a sharp spike in attacks over the last six weeks in particular. and we've had a conscious blinding of osce, did i abling cameras, shoot-down by

separatists of two osce-uavs. both our ad -- advocacy at every level, president putin's advisor on this work, we're calling this out. so we're working on it very hard. i think the point is for ukraine to fulfill its obligations then we test whether russia was ever serious about these agreements. >> thank you. my time is up. >> thank you, very much. senator rubio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary nuland, let me read you quote here from the same individual. it is general phillip breedlove. he said russia has chosen to be adversary and pose as long term existential threat to the united states and to your european allies and partners. it goes on to say, russia doesn't want to challenge the agreed rules of international order, it wants to rewrite them. is that your assessment of state of russia under vladmir putin as far as their role on international scene? >> senator, i don't have a problem with that characterization at all. >> then let me ask about

ukraine. a ukrainian activist wrote about minsk-2, called it a. here is his quote. russia does nothing to simply mint the agreement, the u.s. and e.u. are forcing minsk-2 down kiev, and easier to put pressure on ukraine to accept bad terms than forcing pressure on including sanctions on russia, end quote. i seem to share those views it appears russia is perfectly comfortable what they do as frozen conflict in the region. obviously some of what they're doing in syria is distracting attention. we don't talk about ukraine nearly as much as we once did. everyone is focused on role in syria. part of the calculation putin had was exactly that. it is a frozen situation, i walked in late when senator menendez was asking about but why is he wrong when he characterizes it as a farce? why is he wrong when he characterizes as situation where no one is pressuring russia to

comply but they know the west and our european partners are pressuring kiev especially germans to comply? >> senator, i think the largest piece of leverage that we have on russia is the sustainment over two years of deep and comprehensive sanctions across the u.s. and the e.u. countries, japan, canada, et cetera. so again, this is why we are advocating because minsk has not been implemented that sanctions have to be rolled over again. we're continuing to press as i said in response to senator shaheen's point, that ukraine can not be asked to vote on the political decentralization pieces of musk until. actions of minsk, osce, heavy weapons has been implemented that is the frame we are using. that is the frame germany and

france are using. i think ukraine does itself a service by being ready with text on election law, being ready with special status to implement when those agreed conditionses are met but russia has not either itself or with its clients in danbas gotten security conditions met. >> when you talk about rollover you mean existing framework. why not increase sanctions? these are violations agreement they reach and they have not complied with? am i right in guessing or in stating that your argument is going to be that we don't want to go any further than our partners in europe are willing to go and they're not willing to do additional sanctions? >> senator, i would say, i was quite gratified when the g7 nations that met in japan just a couple of weeks ago made clear that we are dead toy increase sanctions if we need to the. the united states as you know not only maintains the sanctions but does regular maintenance to

them to insure that they can't be circumvented. we've done that on two occasions and we're prepared to do it again. >> could there an argument be met this pain threshold clearly has not impacted his behavior? or do you argue the sanctions have impacted his behavior? >> well, all i can tell you is we have deterred further land grabs in the ukraine. that was a real risk when we first started with sanctions, that they would try to run all the way to kiev. i can tell you russians are openly talking now about the pain of sanctions including when we work with them on the minsk thing. so they know what it is going to take to get these sanctions rolled back and it's their choice whether they want to do what is necessary. >> how about crimea? how come we no longer hear crimea minged? is this defacto, something we accept as reality or does that continue to be a part of our conversations that crimea should