Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Thursday said the Biden administration was focused on “making sure that Ukraine can continue to defend itself” against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

In an interview with FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Kirby also pushed back on the hesitancy to use “escalatory rhetoric” when it comes to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the genocide he was committing in Ukraine. He argued Putin was the one using such rhetoric.

“I think the president was speaking very, very clearly to the American people about the atrocities that we’ve seen,” Kirby said of President Joe Biden calling out Putin’s genocide. “He also said, Brian, and you heard him say it in almost the same breath that there is a legal process that has to be observed and followed to come up with a formal assessment of genocide. But it’s hard to look at the atrocities — and you guys have been covering this every several single day. You look at the death and destruction, the bodies in the streets. It’s hard to look at that and not feel a sense of just tragedy over what is happening to the Ukrainian people and to their cities and towns. And so, whether it is called genocide or not, what I can tell you we are focused on here at the Pentagon is making sure that Ukraine can continue to defend itself. We just announced another $800 million of weapons and systems that will be going here very, very shortly.”

“I would tell you when we’re talking about escalatory rhetoric, let’s talk about Vladimir Putin,” he continued. “Let’s talk about a guy who said he didn’t believe that Ukraine was even a sovereign state or that the Ukrainian people even had the right to govern themselves. Let’s talk about a guy who actually hinted in the early days of this war the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. Let’s talk about a guy who has used and has talked about the potential use of biological and chemical weapons inside Ukraine. So, if we’re going to talk about escalatory rhetoric, I’d prefer that we focus it on the man who is actually the one using it.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent