today is five months since russia launched its illegal invasion while the russians have achieved
some incremental tactical success in the donbas over the last several weeks and actually months
they have failed to achieve their strategic and operational objectives
a capable and defiant people of ukraine their capital still stands their army still fights
and their people are more determined now than ever to preserve their democracy the russian failure is
because of the inspiring the bravery the resolve the courage the resistance of the ukrainian people
but it's also because of nations coming together the international community coming together under
u.s leadership to form this present present-day arsenal of democracy freedom-loving countries
around the globe have a stake in preserving the rules-based international order collectively
we cannot allow the strong to conquer the weak nor tolerate the idea that might makes right
the unprovoked russian aggression has profound consequences not only in ukraine but across europe
and indeed across the globe so the president united states has directed that we stand by
ukraine in their hour of need so we will continue to supply the ukrainians with the weapons they
need to defend their homeland and resist russian aggression when i addressed this group last month
we were in the midst of shipping high mars into ukraine and training the ukrainians on that weapon
system today the ukrainians are effectively employing these high mars with strikes against
russian command and control nodes their logistical networks their field artillery and their defense
sites and many other targets these strikes are steadily degrading the russian ability to supply
their troops command and control their forces and carry out their illegal war of aggression
the fact that the ukrainians were able to quickly deploy these systems
speaks highly of their ability their ingenuity their artillery ability their gunner capability
their determination and their will to fight as of today we have transferred 12 highmars to ukraine
this is part of more than 20 that the united states and our allies have committed
trained also are 200 ukrainians on the high mars and that training continues with many
more and we've transferred as the secretary indicated hundreds of gimler munitions
when the president signs the authorization to provide weapons or ammunition to ukrainians these
items begin moving within days the average is about 48 to 72 hours before the initial shipments
and they're in ukrainian hands just a week or so later on the front line secretary austin and
i remain in regular contact with our ukrainian counterparts and everything we recommended to
the president is based on these conversations and our professional analysis here and in combination
with us you come and that is to support the requirements of the current and future fight
this phase the current phase of the war continues to be a battle of attrition executed through
sustainment and really long-range fires in the near term the russians will likely continue using
heavy artillery bombardments to achieve their limited gains in the east however these tactical
gains have come at an incredible cost in terms of russian casualties and destroyed equipment
the contact group that met today intends to continue supplying the ukrainians to defend their
country impose costs and compel the russians to cease their unprovoked war of aggression
today is day 147 since the russian invasion illegal and unprovoked large scale
the strong against the weak and this fight will likely continue to be protracted conflict
and so our discussion as a contact group focused on assisting ukrainians to sustain the long fight
how can we best arm and train them so they can continue to defend their country
and exhaust the russian military machine in the coming weeks and months this group will continue
to stand alongside our ukrainian partners and defend the international rules based order which
is in everyone's interest the russians decide uh they're going to go ahead and shift their war
aims and come out of the kiev lines of advance and mass their forces uh down in the vicinity of the
donbas so for the last 90 days the russians have massed their ground maneuver forces in that region
and the ukrainians have fought a very effective mobile defense in depth and area defense in depth
anchored on various strong points in in urban and village areas and they have fought the russians
very effectively so for 90 days the russian advances have amounted to maybe six to ten miles
something in that range it's not very much uh it's very intense a lot of violence tens of thousands
of artillery rounds every 24-hour period lots of casualties on both sides lots of destruction of
of villages and so on but in terms of actual ground gained very very little by the russians
relative to all of ukraine uh as you know the ukrainians conducted a controlled deliberate
planned withdrawal from sever danesque who conducted a rearward passage of lines and
conducted a rear river crossing and they set up a new line generally to the west of severanesque and
they are continuing significant resistance in addition to that in the russian occupied areas
you have significant uh resistance behind russian lines so to speak so that the russians
are challenged not only to their front but the ukrainian conventional forces but they're also
challenged in their rare areas their areas are not secure for sure and ukrainian is a very effective
resistance network set up so the bottom line is the cost is very high the gains are very low
there is a grinding war of attrition that is occurring in the in the luhansk donbass region
lujan status the two oblasts of donbass and to answer your question about is the donbass lost
no it's not lost yet uh the ukrainians are making the russians pay for every inch of territory that
they gain uh and and advances are measured in literally hundreds of meters on on some days you
might get a kilometer or two out of the russians but not much more than that so high cost battle of
attrition grinding uh not lost yet uh in in in the uh donbass and the ukrainians intend to uh
continue the fight besides although the ukrainians are using a very effective defensive maneuver
as i mentioned earlier in terms of fires highmars provide you long-range rocket fire with great
precision in addition to the triple seven 155 and the other countries are providing the m109 155
so that gets you into the 40 kilometer uh range uh or and then you get your 105s and then you
come back to your mortars so you've got an echelon of fires from deep uh to the close fight and the
ukrainians have as i think i mentioned this before ukrainians have excellent artillery uh soldiers uh
excellent gunners as the british would call them uh and they're being very very effective uh to
date the highmars that uh that we have provided them uh and we're not the only country by the way
other countries are providing long-range fires as well britain for example and some others are
donating long-range rocket artillery to date those systems have not been eliminated by the russians
and i knock on wood every time i say something like that and they're being very effective at
using them employing precision weapons against the target the issue is not so much the system
the actual launcher the issue will become ammunition and the consumption rates and the
amount of weapon the amount of ammunition that's fired out of the highmars we are looking at all
of that very very carefully on a day-to-day basis we advise the secretary where we think the levels
of risk are to our own force in terms of our readiness and our capability and our equipping
we think we're okay right now and as we project forward into the next month or two or three
we think we're going to be okay and we also are tied in very very closely through the dep sec def
with the industrial base and the production management uh techniques that we have to to uh
continue to produce those weapon systems so it's not so much the launcher but it's the ammunition
i'm sorry oh on the flight training yes so we you know as you know we look at all kinds of options
to present to the secretary and the president um and and uh there's been no decisions on any of
that uh but we do examine a wide variety of options to include pilot training i
you know as far as russian intentions obviously we have a uh lots of analysts that look at that on a
day-to-day basis and and i'm not going to comment on what i think their future intentions are
here at the podium except to say that you know their their past behavior has been an illegal
uh aggressive war inside ukraine and unless stopped that aggression let's stop typically
continues so but but specific aims and objectives that the russians may have i'll remain silent on
that in terms of what you asked about could it go in directions i think escalation uh those kind of
terms that you were uh referring to we look at it as most likely most dangerous courses
of action that an opponent may uh an enemy may uh may take uh and so we think of those uh in terms
of most dangerous of course there's uh you can it doesn't take me at a podium to to talk about
what they might be you can figure that out on your own but uh there's possibilities in in various
domain geography weapon systems etc there's always a possibility of that i can tell you that
we look very very closely at that every single day we're in a constant monitoring mode
on any forms of uh escalation by russia that could have significant impact on the united states
nato or in or ukraine or anything else uh we're constantly advising this the secretary to that
uh in terms of most likely though at this point and and this is always subject to to debate but
at this point we have a very serious grounding ground grinding war of attrition going on
in the don boss and unless there's a breakthrough on either side which right now the analysts
don't think is particularly likely in the near term but unless there's a breakthrough it'll
probably continue as a grinding war of attrition for a period of time until both sides see an
alternative way out of this perhaps through negotiation or something like that but right
now in terms of most likely most dangerous that's kind of the way we're looking at it there's a lot
of detail that goes behind that which i won't comment on at this point in terms of the detail
but that's the broad outline of what we're looking at follow up briefly sir on what the secretary was
saying about iran and him not wanting to talk about it in detail is there any reason that iran
should be worried that the united states doesn't think it's a good idea for them to get involved
you know why would they care they'll just wouldn't they just do what they want
well you know those are policy questions barbara um and and uh and so i'm not gonna
go beyond that at the at the microphone i don't think that would be wise to do that
uh i don't think it's a good idea that uh iran is providing uh uavs or other weapon systems
that are being commented on the media to to russia um and we'll see where all that goes
at this time passing zero seven zero four one four zero rtb linking via septum
you