As few minutes ago on “Meet the Press,” Sen. Mark Warner had the following to say about Russian President Vladimir Putin putting his nuclear forces on alert:
“Well, first of all, the U.S. response has been stronger because we’ve actually brought all our European and other allies along with us…Look at what’s happened over the last few days – we’ve got Nord Stream 2 sanctions, we personally sanctioned Putin…We have the SWIFT actions…kicking Russian banks…and you’re seeing even former Russian allies like Kazakhstan – where Putin sent troops recently – refuse to back Putin. I think Putin totally underestimated both the Ukrainians’ fight…we have great respect for Zelensky rallying the nation…I think [Putin] underestimated Ukrainians’ resolve. So far, thank god, [Putin] has not thrown everything…but these are very dangerous days…One last point, remarkably what [Putin] has also been able to do is unify the vast majority of us in the Senate – Democrats and Republicans alike – with the Ukrainian people, with NATO, and he’s going to pay a high price…What we do know is that over the last couple years, Putin has been more and more isolated; he’s not been in the Kremlin for the most part, he’s been down at his place in Sochi or in his dacha outside of Moscow. And when you are an authoritarian leader and you have less and less inputs, and you’re only hearing from people who want to say to the boss, ‘hey, you’re right’, I think that leads to miscalculation, and I think that’s what has happened in the case of his invasion of Ukraine...I don’t think the American public or for that matter our NATO allies would have been wanting American or NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine…NATO a year ago was broken in the aftermath of President Trump…They are fully bought in at this point…I’m open to NATO expansion…That actually has to be done in concert with all 30 NATO nations, there is a process…”
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