understand the state of georgia, this isn't just about great to learn about final world are children with her. and general lloyd is expected to give her a press conference in the next half hour. so we'll bring that to you live ahead of us. or we can go to our correspond attorney schultz, who's outside mentor headquarters there in. pluses. welcome not terry. so regardless of what's a general austin. so what, regardless of general austin's would our nato allies on the same page? you know, phil, they really are remarkably on the same page when it comes to pledging support for ukraine, for as long as it takes that doesn't mean that we don't see differences between the countries on exactly what aid they're willing to give, how much money they're willing to give and, and some of this comes from a, their geo location. because if you look at the baltic states, of course, if,

if you crane doesn't win this war, they fear that russia is coming for them. next, countries further away belgium, germany, they don't feel such as such an intrinsic fear that a russian, when an ukraine would, it would immediately mean crossing their borders. so these are differences between countries and nato has always had to deal with those differences. but there is not one single country that is withdrawing support for, for ukraine, and it doesn't say will be there as long as it takes. so they really are united on this. and i wouldn't say that if it weren't true this time, and the u. s. defense, zachary has had a busy day of it. he's been at the nato defense ministers meeting and also meeting with the international crane that defense contact grew. yes, the ramstein meeting, as, as this group is called, is what's wrapping up now. and then the nato defense ministers will move into their meeting at about 5 o'clock local time. so it, what's interesting about this ukraine contact group is that it's actually something

like 50 countries. so not just the 30 nato allies, but some 20 more. and the reason we can't tell you exactly who those countries are, is because they won't tell us. so it seems that some of these countries don't want to make it completely public, that they are supporting ukraine. we can't get a list of the countries who are in a defense contact group. so unless they've announced themselves, we don't actually know. but this is, this is really important. it's important for a secretary, austin, to be able to say that countries around the world and not just in europe and the united states are supporting ukraine. and i think that means a lot for ukraine as well. meanwhile, i make too much for you and still to book has been saying that key needs ammunition more than it needs a fighter jets that said that keith is asking for more fights objects. so it doesn't seem like both parties are going to be necessarily happy with today's the outcomes of today's meetings. nobody i spoke with before this meeting. phil thought that if fighter jets were going to be granted at this meeting that's,

that's far off. but as we've seen time in again, including just a month ago when, when ukraine came in and said, we want tanks at that point, nobody was willing to give tanks either a month later. everyone is looking at how they can deliver lepper and how they can deliver challengers. and so ukraine is, is right to, to not give up when, when they get a know on the 1st day, i'm as the 1st response and nobody would put it past them to, to actually come away with fighter jets at some point. it's just not going to be today. and one of the staffing things has come out of the last day or so is the fact that ukraine is using more ammunition in a day. and the hold of you are, can, can actually produce. and germany's defense minister said he's country will ramp up ammunition production. how complicated is it to do that, terry? you know, this is really important that germany announced to day that it is signed a contract to start ramping up the ammunition production. because i was told

yesterday by a source here that not one single contract had been signed by germany so that there was a lot of talk about. a about trying to increase the production of ammunition, but that, that when it actually came down to signing these deals in which the companies would, would start to, to change their production process. it wasn't moving quite as quickly. so this was an important announcement from historian and he, and he knew that at the time, because you have to start sourcing the materials. i mean this, it's a very multi layered process. you have to get the raw materials and those come from different places there and then the companies need to put them together. the explosives and, and, and all of this is, is, you know, you have to make deals all the way up the production chain. and this just wasn't happening. and so i think that now finally, when you hear a secretary general stolen berg, you heard secretary austin say the same thing that ammunition is, is you know, absolutely the 1st requirement for ukraine to continue holding its own territory. that's when people are getting serious vary as your speaching. we've been looking

at the pictures of the podium inside nature headquarters, which general austin is expected to speaking will be keeping an eye on data as we speak. in the meantime, just as we talk about across the still brocker step and look at that decision to send leopard 2 tanks a to ukraine, which was a big know out 1st the ukraine chipped away at that decision then that yes became a yes. and he has training which has moved surprisingly fast from the yes to the training and then delivery at sometime in march. that's true. now, one of the concerns still when, when they're delivering these tanks and, and each country the, the, the u. k is sending challender tanks a, you know, each country is delivering a different tank. one of the concerns now and secretary general styles and berg mentioned this earlier, is that the, these all need spare parts. they all need ammunition which we've been talking about . so and, and the only different kinds of training. so it's not as simple for ukraine as that

. now they're getting leopard twos and everything's going to be great. they absolutely need to be able to keep these vehicles up and it's very expensive and it's very difficult. and this was one of the reasons why the u. s. said it didn't want to send it's top tanks because they said it would be so expensive to fix them . and as well as taking a long time to get over there that it wasn't really the best bang for the buck. so to say. so this is really important also, and i think that this is what we're going to hear coming out of this meeting. maybe not so many big packages of new equipment, but a renewed commitment to deliver what they've already said they're going to deliver . and to make sure that there's ammunition and spare parts for those weapons systems that are already on their way. and logistics training, a logistics in time. when we look back at the start of this of, of this comes a conflict. we can say how important that was when russia suffered exactly these problems with these long a columns of supporting and of this long supporting

a convoy which became targets at the start of this war. yeah, and remember that, that we learned through the failure of these convoys to sometimes move ahead at all that russia had not been keeping up it's equipment. so i remember following this twitter thread endlessly that talked about how you could look at the pictures of these tanks in the convoys and see that they literally hadn't rotated tires. and so then when they started to try to move out, the tires blew. so it, it, you, we, all, we already know that russia had to go into sort of, it's back shelves to bring out enough equipment to stage this massive assault on ukraine. so presumably they're going to be having more trouble than ukraine is with all of this new equipment coming in for keith. right. so they told me things to day later today, a international, a contact group meetings. but we don't expect anything significant to come out of. it's just more of the same, more pledges on perhaps increased delivery,

but nothing significant in terms of a step up. well, well that's not nothing more of the same is more heavy weaponry for ukraine. and i think that they appreciate every bullet that comes their way because they're running out of them. so i think that every one of these ramstein meetings has come out with more and more support for ukraine. and they absolutely do need the spare parts and ammunition. it may not be as dramatic and announcement as it, you know, is that the leopard twos are going to be on their way. but they absolutely are necessary for ukraine to continue operating like they are. and to try to regain and hold their territory. so i think that ukraine must have known coming into this meeting that they weren't going to be getting fighter jets here. but again, they, they lay the, you know, that the baseline for what they want next. and everyone has to keep talking about it, but i think what they'll get out of this meeting and what will be very significant for them. secretary austin said it's now with all of these 50 some countries, whether it's $50000000000.00 your dollars so far. so. yes,

thank you for that to tell you. let's go to night. i had quote to sent a general austin has taken the podium that says listen to wants to be kind of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark, milly, secretary austin will begin with some brief comments followed by general milly, i will call on reporters and due to time constraints, i would ask you to please limit your fault with that i turned it over to sectarian . oh, thanks, frederick. good afternoon everyone. and thanks for joining us today. we've just concluded our minds meeting of the ukraine defense contact group. i'd like to thank ukrainian minister of defense, charisma, cough and his team for once again, joining us today. now, next week, the world will mark a graham milestone. it will have been a year since russia invaded it's peaceful, neighbour, ukraine, or harsh,

or with the families of all the ukrainian soldiers killed and wounded, fighting to defend their country, their sovereignty and their fellow citizens. and we mourn alongside you crave ukrainian civilians who have lost children and parents, and loved ones as russia has deliberately attack civilian targets. russia has inflicted a year of tragedy and tara, on ukraine. but the people of ukraine have inspired the world. we deeply admire the resilience of the ukrainian people and their determination to defend their territory. their sovereignty in their freedom and nations of good will have rallied together to reject hooton's vision of world chaos. of a world of chaos,

where tyrants can trample borders and conquer their peaceful neighbors and break the rules of war. and that's what this contact group represents. together, we have made clear that we will support ukraine's self defense for the long haul. and we will move out with the urgency that the moment demands. earlier this month, the united states announced another round of security assistance for ukraine. the presidential drawdown announcement included more ammunition for high mars. it included $190.00 heavy machine heavy machine guns to counter unmanned aerial systems from russia or, or iran. 181 m rep vehicles in more than 2000 any tank, munitions, and other key capabilities. we also added $1750000000.00

in ukraine security assistance initiative, funds for critical air defense capabilities including counter u. s. u. s. systems and more. and at today's contact group, we joined again with our valued allies and partners to make sure that ukraine has what it needs when it needs. and we continue to work together to provide ukraine with full combat, credible capabilities, and not just equipment. and that's why we discussed synchronizing our donations into an integrated training plan. and you can see the importance of our coordination and our common efforts to meet ukraine's needs for armor. among the members of this contact group, we have given ukraine's defenders more than 8 combat brigades. this includes major contributions from united states of strikers in bradley's and abrams tanks

and includes the u. k. donation of challenger tanks in the contribution of sen armed personnel, armored personnel carriers that canada announced last month. it also includes the refurbished t $72.00 tanks at the united states. the netherlands and the czech republic are in the process of delivering as well as poland, latest donation of t 70 twos. and it includes the important steps from germany, poland, canada, portugal, spain, norway, denmark, and the netherlands on leopard battle tanks. now we also heard today about significant new air defense donations, that includes italy and france, which jointly announced that they will provide ukraine with a samp t air defense system. and france also anal said it will work with australia to ramp

up 155 millimeter ammunition production to support ukraine. and finally, let me also think norway, which just announce that it will provide 7500000000 euros in military and civilian assistance to ukraine. or the coming 5 years and that's a very significant commitment. now, all of these capabilities will continue to be important for ukraine's success on the battlefield. but as i said last month and ramstein, this isn't about one single capability. it's about delivering all the capabilities that we promised it's about integrating all of these systems together, this about working with the ukrainians to help them fight for their freedom. now we also had an important discussion today on our ongoing work on accountability. it's

a priority for me and my contact group colleagues to ensure that our donations continue to be used as intended. and that we move proactively to prevent arms full information. and we will keep working with our ukrainian partners to ensure that all of the equipment that were providing continues to reach the brave troops on the front lines. now a year ago, booting assume that ukraine was an easy target. potent assumed that keith would easily fall. and put in assumed that the world would stand by but the kremlin was wrong on every count. over the past year, ukraine soldiers have fought valiantly for their country. ukraine's people have shown deep courage in the face of russian cruelty and countries of good. we all have rallied to the fan and open.