Ukraine, Louis Martinez, United States discussed on Morning News with Manda Factor and Gregg Hersholt
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For the fight ahead. In the United States together with our allies and partners are going to continue to have Ukraine's back as it defends itself. Meanwhile, more American assistance will be arriving in Ukraine. Louis Martinez covers The Pentagon for ABC News. He spoke with Erin kurtzke. Today we heard Louis the president announced new sanctions that he said would be coming sometime later this week. And during his visit to Kyiv, he announced a new American aid package. What's in this one? The president announced yesterday while he was visiting inside of Kyiv that there would be about another $460 million in the military assistance to Ukraine Aaron. We're talking about more javelins. We're talking about way more artillery rounds that the Ukrainians do need for their fight against the Russians. What's going on in eastern Ukraine right now is just a back and forth of a lot of artillery shells. It's a brutal battle to recalled the terror and the horrors of the World War I in terms of trench warfare. More weapons, including those high Mars, those high Mars missiles that can reach as far as 50 miles deep into enemy territory. In this case, the Russian lines and which had a great impact against the Russian movements there in eastern Ukraine. But the president's commitment, you heard it in his speech today that the United States and other allies of those 50 nations that have been providing military assistance to Ukraine will continue providing that assistance as long as it takes. But as we've heard, there seems to be interest waiting here stateside about how much to continue going because so far, the United States since the invasion of Ukraine began nearly a year ago as providing almost $30 billion and you see Republicans on Capitol Hill now saying maybe it's time to ease back that blank check as the way their characterizing it. And yet if the president is acknowledging any of that reluctance, it didn't show in his speech because he said together with allies and partners, the United States is going to continue to have Ukraine's back as it now enters the second year of the war. And Louis, I wanted to ask you to about the U.S. concerns that China may be preparing to arm Russia. What are the concerns there? What's The Pentagon say? And what are the potential consequences? Yeah, you're hearing a lot airing from a lot of national security officials. It began this weekend with Tony blinken, the Secretary of State who was in Germany for a National Security Council. And he laid out concerns that the United States has that China might be preparing or has been providing lethal military assistance to Russia. We know that there have been Russian military shortfalls in terms of advanced missiles. We know that they're also having short files in terms of tanks. And we know that they're having issues with their manufacturing because of those economic sanctions that were put in place nearly a year ago after the invasion of Ukraine. So Russia has been looking elsewhere. We know that even North Korea has been providing assistance in form of artillery shells to the Russians. There has been concerns upon the part of the Biden administration that what is going to happen here is that China, which already has providing some kind of assistance non lethally, might be gearing up to do that in terms of lethal aid. That becomes an issue that becomes a red line for the administration. You're hearing a tough line from officials that there will be severe consequences for China should that be the case. This weekend secretary blinken met on the sidelines of that conference in Germany with his Chinese counterpart and reiterated that message from President Biden that there will be severe consequences. Now, what will that be? That remains unclear, but definitely concerns that China could be preparing to assist Russia militarily in its battle in Ukraine. ABC's Louis Martinez and Aaron koterski. 1220 time for a stock chart dot com money update in the markets have been down in the red for most of the day. The NASDAQ is down by 2.3%, 276 points, the S&P and the Dow both down by about 2%. That's a 655 point loss for the Dow on some poor earnings reports, especially from Home Depot, that stock down by 6%. Jim chesko now with more money news. Shares a home builders are sliding in the wake of new data showing sales of previously owned homes, fell for a 12th straight month in January, PulteGroup, D.R. Horton and Toll Brothers shares all down at least 2.4%. A strong labor market gave many workers confidence to quit their jobs last year. Workers voluntarily left their jobs 4.2 million times each month on average in 2022, up about 20% from 2019. And much of the west and south people quit their jobs at higher rates than average late last year. Employees in northeast states such as New York and Massachusetts were more reluctant to turn in negotiations. There were 11 million unfilled jobs at the end of December. That's your money now