It is in fact a campaign slogan, that is a campaign item, and it is completely inappropriate for the troops to do this. John Kirby More Quotes by John Kirby More Quotes From John Kirby We still are trying to learn more about these two individuals, it's appalling that a public official in Russia would even suggest the death penalty for two American citizens that were in Ukraine. And we're going to continue to try and learn what we can about this. John Kirby So, in addition to the GCC meeting, there'll be a series of bilateral discussions as there are on the sidelines of all cooperation councils and summits. He will have a bilateral meeting with King Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and King Salman's leadership team, and the Crown Prince is on that leadership team. So you can expect that he'll see the Crown Prince while he's there. John Kirby It's counterterrorism, it's climate change, certainly it's oil production, obviously, it's going to be on the agenda. And, a big item on the agenda is the war in Yemen. John Kirby This is just one example, we’re watching this across the board. We’ve seen these kinds of activity by the Russians in the past. John Kirby We do have information that the Russians are likely to want to fabricate a pretext for an invasion, which, again, is right out of their playbook. John Kirby We believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations, as well as military equipment, at the hands of Ukraine, or the West. John Kirby He clearly is providing himself many options, lots more capabilities for exactly what purpose? We don't know right now. And because we don't know exactly what his purpose is, we want to make sure we're ready on the NATO front to defend our allies. John Kirby This force is designed to deter aggression and enhance our defensive capabilities, and we expect them, as I said, to move in the coming days. John Kirby The current situation demands that we reinforce the deterrent and defensive posture on NATO's eastern flank. John Kirby We do not believe conflict is inevitable, the United States in lockstep with our allies and partners, has offered Russia a path to de-escalate. John Kirby This is not a sum total of the deterrence actions we will take or those to reassure our allies, we stand united. We have said that repeatedly. We say it again today. These movements are unmistakable signals to the world that we stand ready to reassure our NATO allies and deter and defend against any aggression. John Kirby The secretary heard from personnel across the force about the need to update and clarify this policy during the standdowns that he directed earlier this year, that was one of the common bits of feedback that we got, was that they wanted more clarity. And so we tried to do that with this new instruction. John Kirby Our civilian workers here, they take their jobs very seriously, they take their obligations to their families and their coworkers very seriously and I think we have every expectation that they too will continue to seek and pursue getting vaccinated, there are a range of administrative tools that leaders here at Defense Department would have to make sure that our civilian workers are likewise getting the vaccine. John Kirby Thus far, and going forward, it does require constant coordination and deconfliction with the Taliban, what we’ve seen is, this deconfliction has worked well in terms of allowing access and flow as well as reducing the overall size of the crowds just outside the airport. John Kirby Obviously, force protection is a high priority, we're always evaluating the threat. It's not only a day-by-day thing, it's an hour-by-hour thing. John Kirby The fact that we are flying overwatch missions now, and have been since the 14th – we were actually doing it before the 14th, force protection is a high priority, and we’re going to have at our disposal all the assets and resources necessary to make sure we can accomplish this mission safely and efficiently, just like we were accomplishing the previous mission of drawdown safely and efficiently. John Kirby Protection is the prudent and responsible thing to do. John Kirby I would just let the results speak for themselves so far and we're not taking anything for granted. John Kirby Our expectation is that if an individual doesn't want to take the vaccine that we're going to provide them some counseling. John Kirby We're still examining possibilities for overseas locations to include some departmental installations that would be capable of supporting planned relocation efforts with appropriate temporary residences and supporting infrastructure. John Kirby
