ambassador marie yovanovitch. in just a few hours the senate is set to hold a final vote on a $40 billion aid package for ukraine. chuck schumer has now secured enough votes to pass the measure. already passed by the house. it then will head to the president s desk for his signature. the aid package delayed recently in the senate because of an objection from republican senator rand paul of kentucky. joining us now, former u.s. ambassador to russia, now director of the institute for international studies at stanford and an nbc news international affairs analyst, michael mcfaul. ambassador, it is great to have you back on the show this morning. let s go back a couple of stories to the meeting that is about to take place between the prime minister of sweden and the president of finland and the president of the united states. a extraordinary site when you go back two or three months ago to think they would be on the doorstep, on the the brink of joining nato? couldn t agree more. let s g
going to be a trading here and a false equivalency between these ukrainian soldiers, legitimate soldiers fighting for their own territory, and tieing them to those that committed war crimes and i think that tragically is going to be part of the trade and part of the framing that the russians will pursue in the coming weeks. ambassador, we re looking now at a live picture just outside of the white house. the arrival of the prime minister of sweden standing with president biden and to go back to this topic for a moment here, and if you re vladimir putin, you re looking at your initial aims several months ago, let s call it three months, perhaps rolling into kyiv. taking over the capitol, installing a puppet government, all of these objectives to beat back countries like finland and sweden to discourage them from anything. precisely the opposite has happened. what do you suspect, it is impossible to get into his mind, but he makes of the way this is all played out over the last three mo
resulted in a so-called peace dividend, not just parts of the united states but the european nations. the germans almost did away with a viable military force. so did sweden. the crucial strategic island of gotland in the baltic sea, during the cold war, sweden had more than 100,000 troops on that island. now there s 400. and finland basically went to a mobilization military force. only 19,000 some odd full-time troops, a million man reserve force they would call in and a lot of artillery in stockpiles. so i think that both finland and sweden felt the vulnerability to russian aggression, along with the baltic states, along with all of the front line eastern european nato countries. so, they want into nato badly. i think when they are in there,
actually be antagonistic toward russia. and those discussions were definitely had. it might have even dragged things out. and ukraine was not qualified to join nato at the time that this war broke out. we all know that. does sweden and finland being fast tracked into nato open up the possibility that ukraine could become a part of nato, because most experts have said ukraine will never be a part of nato. you know, it is a complicated question. i think the ukrainians rightly believe when they hear they re not qualified, like you said and that is what they re heard for many, many years. they were supposed to sign a membership action plan, a map, right, a get into the program and get qualified and do the things that you have to do to be a legitimate member and they haven t even signed a map yet. at the same time, you think
and the world needs lower carbon solutions to keep up. at chevron, we re working to find new ways forward, through investments and partnerships in innovative solutions. like renewable natural gas from cow waste, hydrogen-fueled transportation, and carbon capture. we may not know just what lies ahead, but it s only human. to search for it. 51 past the hour. happening right now the president of finland and prime minister of sweden are meeting with president biden at the white house. just a short time ago, we saw the two nordic leaders arrive at the white house as they push forward with their bids to join nato. we re expecting to hear from both of them along with president biden when they deliver remarks in the next