00:00 It comes as well as European Union leaders are discussing a plan today to use billions of euros in profits from frozen
00:06 Russian financial assets to buy arms for Ukraine as they try to bolster Kiev. The bloc's 27 national leaders also to debate how
00:13 Europe can do more to defend itself and boost its own arms industry, reflecting fears of course that Russia may not stop at Ukraine and the
00:21 US may not be such a staunch protector of Europe in the future.
00:26 I hope that we can reach an agreement soon and change banknotes into weapons because your soldiers don't fight with banknotes.
00:37 They need physical arms, they need physical instruments in order to defend your people.
00:44 Joseph Burrell there. Well Gulliver, how desperately needed are these arms now for Ukraine and are people following what's happening at the EU there today?
00:52 Oh yeah, I think Ukrainians are following all the developments on international assistance to the country because they know how desperate the situation is.
01:03 The Ukrainian armed forces are really, really short of ammunition. They're also very short of manpower. They've got a big problem with mobilisation.
01:11 But the two things are of course linked. I think that more people would be willing to go and fight if they knew that they were going to be properly armed.
01:18 Yesterday though, at the Ramstein gathering of defence ministers, Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, was only able to make the same promises again that the United States will stand by Ukraine,
01:31 even as Mike Johnson was making it clear that Congress would not vote on the New Age package for Ukraine from the United States this week,
01:39 which means that the earliest they could possibly vote on it is April.
01:42 These delays are being paid for in Ukrainian lives and Ukrainians are really painfully aware of it.
01:49 They've been very, very enthusiastic about Emmanuel Macron recently, who having been somebody who was trying to talk to Putin all the time,
01:58 talking about how Russia shouldn't be humiliated, getting himself a pretty bad rep in Ukraine,
02:03 has suddenly turned into the guy who, in the eyes of Ukrainians, gets it the most in terms of turning his rhetoric into constantly reminding the French and European people
02:12 that this is not just about Ukraine, but it's about European security overall.
02:17 That quote that we just had from Josette Borrell might be saying the kind of things that the Ukrainians want to hear,
02:24 but what they really want to hear is Europeans waking up to the idea that it's not just your people, as Josette Borrell was saying, addressing the Ukrainians,
02:32 but our people in terms of the whole of Europe.
02:36 I think the feeling is that in Europe, things are moving in the right direction on that front, but not fast enough.
02:42 But meanwhile, in the United States, the situation remains extremely worrying with this hugely important aid package still not being voted on.
