Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker discusses U.S. response to rising Russia-Ukraine tensions.
NATO allies may be unified, but there hasn’t been much movement in an attempt to stop Russia’s Putin from invading Ukraine, former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker told “Varney & Co.” Monday.
KURT VOLKER: Unity is good. I think there is a unified assessment of people in NATO that Russia is the aggressor here, that there is a real risk of war; that we should apply sanctions against Russia if they invade. We should support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. But when it comes down to action, there’s been no action taken to this point that is deterring Putin. He continues his build-up. He’s orchestrating these provocations, as we just saw in the eastern part of Ukraine. The force levels are higher even than they were last week, and he’s giving kind of a shrug of his shoulders about diplomacy or about talking with Biden later this week or that Blinken-Lavrov meeting. He’s making his military preparations…
What Russia is doing already is unacceptable activity — taking 75% of its conventional capability, surrounding Ukraine with this, mortar strikes, sniper fire, bombing schools. This is already out of control, already too much military activity. We should be responding to this immediately.
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Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker discusses U.S. response to rising Russia-Ukraine tensions and defending other eastern European allies.
