Welcome back. President Biden welcomes world leaders to Washington As
the NATO summit begins.
32 countries and their allies are gathering for the
75th anniversary of the alliance.
In a speech last hour,
President Biden kicked off the summit.
This remarkable progress, proof that our commitment is broad
and deep, that we're ready,
that we're willing, we're able to deter aggression
and defend every inch of NATO territory across every domain,
land, air, sea, cyber and space.
One issue at the top of the agenda is the
long term support for Ukraine.
International correspondent Jason Bellini is in DC with the latest.
Jason, what can you tell us about the new aid
for Ukraine,
what it means?
Hi, Lauren, you mentioned 32 NATO leaders are here.
Well, one non member leader is also here and that
is President Solinsky.
And we're expecting his remarks,
his first remarks here in Washington,
DC coming up very soon.
And I can tell you back home,
it's a very difficult situation.
The death toll rising above 40 from that attack by
Russia,
including an attack on a hospital,
a Children's Hospital, the largest one in all of Ukraine
that happened in Kiev yesterday.
And that's certainly going to be among the things he's
talking about,
reminding NATO leaders why his country needs more support.
Now, NATO leaders here are also saying that,
but there's going to be more attacks likely from Russia
this week,
sending a message to NATO and also trying to hurt
the resolve of other countries by also potentially using hybrid
warfare.
We're talking about using hacking and sabotage.
They're pretty dire warnings. They say most likely they could
happen in Europe trying to SAP support for Ukraine.
Now, as far as President Biden,
he just spoke and he says that help is on
the way for Ukraine where they need it most,
and that's in the sky.
Today, I'm announcing the historic donation
of air defensive equipment for Ukraine.
the United States, Germany, the Netherlands,
Romania and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment
for five additional strategic air defense systems.
Make no mistake, Russia is failing in this war.
It's interesting that we're getting numbers,
specific numbers of Patriot systems.
Those have been pretty closely held.
Now Politico's reporting that in total,
Ukraine's going to be receiving 9 Patriot systems or Patriot
like systems.
The other thing we're going to be hearing a lot
about this week is industrial production.
And NATO countries need to ramp up production of shells
and other armaments.
And in fact, today I was speaking with the minister
for Industrial production from Ukraine.
He's here in Washington, and he was saying that he's
working now with other NATO countries and companies from the
US and other countries to ramp up production in Ukraine
itself because they just need more and more and more
to be able to compete with Russia in the long
term because Russia is getting support now from Iran and
also from North Korea on these weapons.
Barn certainly spells out why defense and deterrence is one
of the key points for the summit this week.
International correspondent Jason Bellini in DC.
Thank you very much.