on my shoulders, but i have to hold this weighed because i'm responsible for the future of our country for the people find behind the boss. guardians of truth starts february 18th on d w. ah . this is d w as my from berlin, a spy balloon high of the united states sense or 40 scrambling its own remains unclear, but the pentagon suspects china, canada says it's also monitoring what it describes as a 2nd incident. also on the program. if you're a new president of a lot of reasons,

he says he's country, deserves european union membership talks at this year. top officials attending a joint summit in key later today off a hope without too many expectations. ah, i'm feel gale. welcome to the program. united states, since it's tracking a suspected chinese surveillance balloon has been spotted high over the state of montana defense officials say it's flown over sensitive military sites, but they've chosen not to bring it down to avoid potential harm to people on the graph. canada says it's also tracking the balloon and monitoring what it says is a potential 2nd incident. china has warned against speculation and cough a car as it looks in to the situation. it's all good timing for beijing with u. s. secretary of state antony blinking to to visit next week cuz you got one person. so

what do these balloons do? i asked in chung who is international relations and security expert at the n u. s. national university of singapore does how much detail on this particular person use, high altitude balloons in general, have a range of functions they can do anything from imaging, to collecting samples from, of the air to you know, trying to collect signals intelligence. but in this particular case, that's not much enough information for us to know what this particular person does . and this is the 1st time that something like this has happened. so according to the u. s. statements that, that it seems to 60 some suggestion that similar kinds of activity have happened before. busy was just that this the 1st time they have made it public, but whether that is really the case, the so much secrecy surrounding this whole situation, we don't really know for certain. so how does that, how do you expect this to play out from here?

do you expect the u. s. to react to in some way or to just wait and bring it down and examine it? so i don't know whether they they will bring it down. i mean, the option remains on the table. i guess it depends on where the balloon goes to, where the some error that they can bring it down safely. then there's the question of what they will do politically. we know that secretary clinton is missing china next week. if it is the case that the u. s a quite certain, i'm sure that the origins of the blue not from china, i'm sure they will bring this up. it of course, would probably complicate whatever negotiations will be taking place in beijing next thoughts as, as we speculate about this, it's hard to know how far down the conspiracy robin hold to go. this is either inconvenient time it had a secretary visit or it's awarding ahead of the visit. right. so we don't really know for sure. and also it would seem very strange for

beijing to send a signal like that, a head of a visit that they to want, right? it's not something in the u. s. have been demanding. chinese have been pushing up. so the timing, the action is all very strange. this is one of those situations where i mean, there's just so much speculation out there. there's not much of the mission, i guess, unless the us and canadian authorities, i'm off or coming with whatever other information they collect. the rest of us can just rest on, you know, what is what we're being told. right. china mean time telling everyone to just calm down and let's see what happens. yes. so try it. the chinese response has been interesting and they've not fly out the night. it in other situations where they believe that, you know, they shouldn't be call out or they think that it has nothing to do it then the flat out say, isn't them, but that's not been the case right now. so that response from beijing just adds more to the mystery. thanks so much for helping us through that in show from the n

u. s. national university in simple. thank you. and you create a president. zalinski says his country deserves to start talks on joining the european union. this year. is comments came and he's not the address following initial meetings or commission president, a phone line, a joint you crime summit you later today, keith. as rushes war and ukraine approaches its 1st anniversary, ukrainian dream if you membership is unlikely to be achieved quickly. there was the steel of a family get together. this members of the you commission gathered in cave for a historic joint meeting with the ukranian government. he, you commission president or to live on the lion, said they were there to show you up stands as firmly as ever, with ukraine in its war with russia. our presence in chief to day gives a very clear signal. the whole of the european union is in this with

ukraine for the long haul. and we will stand up for ukraine as we stand up for the fundamental rights and the respect of the international law. but amid still the smiles in solidarity sits another issue, i guess, for you, uh huh. ukraine's president vladimir zalinski once she crane to become a fully fledged member of the e. u. family. and quickly you prepared your application for the european union membership brilliantly. i know it by experience you became a candidate country while fighting an invasion. you continue to make impressive progress to meet the 7 steps of the commission's opinion. part of that progress is renewed crack down on corruption, including this rate at the home of one of ukraine's most prominent billionaires. just a day before the e. u team's arrival in cave. that timely demonstration of the landscape

determination to prove to doubt as in europe. that he and his government can be trusted, not only as a future e u member state, but also with billions in aid as and when the country starts to rebuild with woodall marble. but regarding for reconstruction, if there were a lot of discussions on various levels in europe, research regarding the rebuilding of our country after the war. concret. now it is time, i think, for more concrete details luasa both for fast reconstruction given and for fast financing of his process for our important process in the here. and now the e. u has promised to continue its support for ukraine by hitting russia with a fresh wave of sanctions. but when it comes to e, e. e e e membership, it looks like president the landscape would just have to wait until she

a correspondent in cave mac xanda. talk me through yesterday's meeting. so we had this massive delegation in town yesterday, 16 e commissioners and total arm, who met with their counterparts to discuss and, and oversee the blocks main initiatives here. so this talks are ongoing process some, and we don't know much about what exactly has been going on, but there have been some announcements made yesterday in terms of for the use of torture to ukraine. one of them on the military side, you as, as, as committed to train an additional $15000.00 ukrainian soldiers on you territory. and on the side of the economy, re, i related to business the you, it will make it easier for em, ukrainian businesses to access funds and projects in the you, in order to help them entire ukraine and the you cost together at a smaller me thing at later today between president zalinski and the european commission that i present erskin to fund the lion, what's expected there?

right, so this is a, this is a largely symbolic visit, right? this is about sending a message showing ukrainians that, that you is still at their side and supporting them along the way and building towards a common future. so we don't expect any, any ground breaking announcements today, but we know something a few things about the talking points today. one of the main issues is going to be the you integration and you, accession and the commission has identified 7 areas where it's asking ukraine to work on. we're not gonna expect any announcements on how this accession process is, won't continue. if not any concrete steps will be announced, most likely this will happen in spring, but this will definitely be discussed and other issue on the agenda as the response to russian aggression or we heard it already. a 10th package of sanctions and military aid that something that's being, that's being discussed. and today another one that's can be global food security.

you will see how to further help ukraine move grain out of its ports by helping ukraine so, but also helping much of the developing world that very heavily depends on grain and food security. as it would it be fair to say max or despite this high level or delegation? honda found the lines war words, there is no real prospect of ukraine joining the european union any time soon after that's the $1000000.00 question. i mean, there was a funding on yesterday, she praised lensky governments for cracking down corruption for working very hard and working very quickly on meeting these, these, these, these targets that have been identified. but on the matter of the factors, is that joining the you integrating ix ix the accession process is a multi level process. it's very complicated and the country has to undergo the exact same scrutiny as any other country that wants to join to you. so there are

$35.00 chapters which will be used to, to vet the entire system from range from the judiciary to agriculture, to, to, to, to transportation, to the economy. and this takes time and where the ukraine is not at the same level . we're not meeting the expectations of it, you will have to go undergoing reform process. and this could take years, if not decades. thanks will at max, max, xander and keith the united states is expected to send a new longer range weapon to ukraine. the ground launched a small diameter bomb. i has a range of more than 150 kilometers, roughly double bat of ukraine's current longest range weapon is would allow the ukranian army to attack russian forces from a greater distance and to penetrate a far behind enemy lines. it's jointly manufactured by american aerospace company, boeing and swedish south mike martin is a senior fellow at the war studies department of kings college in london. he told

me more about the potential battlefield advantages, this new weapon office, ukrainian forces. as you said, it is more than twice the range of the current long distance hillary system they have. if you draw a line of 150 kilometers from the ukrainian front lines. it actually covers all of the russian forces in ukraine. apart from those that are in the bottom of the crime in peninsula. so what this enables you crane to do is hit all of those logistics and supply dumps previously had been out of range. and so cause quite a lot of us and the russians will have to reconfigure how they do their supply. now, european union says it's going to double, it's military to ukraine by training, an extra $15000.00 soldiers. does that strike you? was a significant contribution? i don't think so. i think what it is, it is part of the back ground, the drumbeat,

if you like, of continuing supplies, continuing training. if we put that 15000 in context, that's probably the number of casualties killed and wounded that ukraine suffered over the last, let's say 4 to 6 months. so really what is it just keeping you crane at the same level of fighting? right now, british prime minister issue soon rock is the latest western allied to pull cold water on caves, hopes of getting fighter jets, echoes the position of the us. and of course, germany, why the reluctance? i think it is partly we've seen this before. is that once a weapon systems, now we just have the tanks announce you try and immediately move on to the new in this case, fight. yes. and i think there's a sense that the allies want to slow down this pipeline, but more than that, flight to jets are just a different level of complexity. not only it's not just the jet is the airfields it's, it's all of the maintenance and supply issues. and then of course,

you have to have this huge infrastructure for controlling fighter jets in the air. so it really is not just a simple ascending planes to ukraine. i'm the latest words from the russian president tom 1st, and he said moscow's potential to respond to western arms deliveries to ukraine is not limited to using armored vehicles. what do we think he's talking about in terms of escalation? well, i think it's very important to comments in context. his main target audience is the russian domestic audience. welcome us. and of course, if you crane receives new weapons from the allies, he needs to pay strong to his domestic audience. from our point of view, we've heard this before throughout the war, we've had threats of escalation from, from putin. and actually, quite a long time ago, the west decided that it was calling his bluff and, and as we seen,

there has been no escalation needed to other countries or to nuclear weapons or anything. and so really we must consider that the russian domestic population is the main target pieces. comments are very clear. thank you so much. my thank you. thank you. just don't remind you of our top stored of the us says it's a tracking, a suspect to chinese surveillance. balloon has been spotted over the state of montana. it finds official states flown over sensitive military sites, but they chose not to shoot it down. that facility will have bought more world news at the top of the hour. good weekend and we're interested in the global economy. our portfolio d w business beyond. here's a closer look at the prod.