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Circumstances, it could move in particular directions, it could in fact impose a no—fly zone in response to the use of chemical weapons or it could even come to direct assistance of ukraine with air power, potentially even with ground forces in order to help ukraine defeat the russian army inside ukraine and restore the territorial integrity and independence of ukraine. interesting. that's further than the leaders will have gone at all. i mean, they've particularly pushed back against those — so you think that might be likely — that's fascinating. can i just ask you one more question? ru...

This point? >> i don't have an update on the missiles. we know that they have -- since the beginning of this launched more than 1,000, but i don't have an exact number. >> secondly, does the pentagon consider russia a competitor? >> i think you can take away from what we talked about yesterday when we release the budget. we talked about russia as an acute threat. that's how we look at them. >> that's not the same as what you've been saying. you've been saying your competitor is russia and china. now we here acute threat. has it changed? >> we consider russia as an acute threat based on what we...

And establishing some sort of collective defense with a nato country would essentially bring in all of nato with this. does the pentagon find a proposal like that feasible? >> i think we're not going to get ahead of where ukraine and russia are on their discussions. this has got to be a negotiation between russia and ukraine and we're certainly not going to get in the middle of that or get ahead of where that is right now. i would just say a couple of things, carla. one, russia should negotiate in good faith. they have an opportunity here. an opportunity they have missed many, many times over ...

Kremlin's real intent was to overthrow the democratically elected government and to occupy or annex large portions of ukraine. the posture of russian forces around kyiv, around much of the black and the azov sea coast and in central and northeastern ukraine indicates the geographic scale of this ambition. they've been attacking ukraine as we have been talking about now for several weeks on multiple lines of axis. russia's intent was to replace ukrainian regional and national authorities and create so-called people's republics, as displayed recently in kherson province. the rapid advance to kyi...

Missiles. we know that they have -- since the beginning of this launched more than 1,000. but i don't have an exact number. >> secondly, does the pentagon still consider russia a near peer competitor? >> i think you can take away from what we talked about yesterday when we released the budget and we talk about russia as an acute threat. and that's how we're looking at russia right now. >> but that's not the same as what you've been saying, near peer competitors russia and china and now we're hearing acute threat. so has it changed in the pentagon's -- >> we consider russia as an acute threat b...