reliance on russian gas. they re providing $220 million a day to russia, which goes to funding the war machine. the last few days, i think there has been a shift, in terms of heavy weaponry and starting to transition away at least from russian oil and gas. i think from russian oil and coal, rather. i think the issue is going to be whether germany will transition away from russian natural gas, on which they re still very dependent. i think the fastest and easiest way to do that would be to table the plan to shut down the german nuclear industry. they have three nuclear plants remaining, supposed to close the end of the year. they closed three the end of the last year. keep the open ones still open. that s the fastest way to end their unconscionable and immoral dependence on russian energy. claire, let me ask about this $33 billion package announced by president biden yesterday. its prospects in the congress
president biden announces a major $33 billion aid package for ukraine, containing military, economic, and humanitarian assistance. ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy thanking president biden and saying he is grateful to the american people. back in russia, the kremlin is practicing for a military parade early next month. much like north korea, the kremlin is reduced to flexing its nuclear arsenal in an attempt to gain the world s attention. boy, they need to practice. i mean, you know, they re not really good at this stuff. yeah, russia continues to we don t want them to we don t want one of those nuclear missiles to run into another nuclear missile. they re so bad. sit there for a few weeks. could run out of gas. they could get lost. anyhow i don t know. russia remains a pariah on the world stage. willie. yeah, that parade is for a domestic audience, so putin can
the ukrainians like about them using potentially american weapons to attack inside russian soil? you had the british defense minister just this week come out and say that he thought it d be logical for the ukrainians to use nato weapons to attack russia at home. they weren t telling the ukrainians not to do that. have you had conversations with ukrainians about whether they can use what you re sending in the packages to attack russia inside of russia? i guess the premise of this question is interesting to us. it sort of ignores the fact that what is actually happening here is an offensive, aggressive war by russia from its own territory, being perpetrated against ukraine inside ukraine. you know, our goal here and our focus is on giving ukraine the tools it needs to defend itself, unless on the tactics that it uses in doing so. we certainly won t get into the operational conversations we have between our pentagon and
precision-guided munitions, they re getting low. the russians are starting to run out of these. that means that they re going to have to depend on the ground troops. as you pointed out, the russian ground troops have not done well. former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor, thank you very, very much. we ll be following this. still ahead on morning joe, we ll talk to department national security adviser jon finer. for more on the president s new request for $33 billion in aid for ukraine. plus, amid renewed resistance, putin s regime announces plans to impose the ruble as the official currency in one russian-occupied region of ukraine. and china is planning to suspend its tariff on imported coal, a decision that will likely benefit russia. also ahead, moderna launches a new effort to make its covid
the russian ministry of defense saying that they were targeting ukrainian military production facilities. willie, this is just a reminder that while the fighting is going on on the ground in the east, the russians more and more are targeting every corner of this country, from kyiv to lviv to odesa, with their missiles. willie. yeah, it reminds me when president biden was over the border in poland and missiles were lobbed not far from where you re standing right now in lviv. raf sanchez in ukraine for us again this morning, thanks so much. joe, yes, the russian military has failed in many ways, failed in its big goal of taking over the country and fallen back and reassessed its goals in the east, but it still has the capability to project this kind of terror on the people of mariupol, of course. they continue to do that. but dropping missiles on kyiv yesterday. they ve just been reduced to being terrorists, not a fighting force. not a world-class army.