united nations. andres pilkovich. thank you for joining us. i want to ask you that your neighboring baltic countries have expressed great fear and concern about the fact if russia succeeds in its invasion of ukraine, countries like yours are actually at risk and others would say, but you re a nato country. you can t be invaded by russia if they tried anything with you, all of nato would have to come to latvia s defense. thank you so much for having me. indeed, we don t think that there is a clear and present danger or imminent danger to the baltic states right now, but of course, this russian attack and the aggression against ukraine is the biggest military war since the second world war. in this regard we are extremely worried and extremely concerned and we do the utmost to support ukraine at this difficult moment. what do you make of the
evacuations and this is very contested airspace. the russian air force is one of the most powerful in the world and there s probably no way to do or announce a no-fly zone without it involving direct combat between the u.s. and russian aircraft and that can escalate it to a much, much broader war which we are trying to avoid. we want to end this war and not escalate it and that s why the combination of sanctions, canceling the pipeline, delivery of military assistance, putting our troops in nato countries, pressing putin as a war criminal before the icc. that s what we ve come together on with our allies thus far, but i know my colleagues and i are anxious to meet with president zelenskyy this morning. senator kaine, you ve been around for a while and not long enough to have first-hand knowledge and back in 1979 and 1990, russia went into afghanistan to prop up a pro-russian regime there and the united states congress funded the use of stinger missiles
the thought is russians will gather around kyiv. we talked to a member of parliament that says they re preparing for a siege where they can t get clothes and supplies, that s why they need help from the west. right now, this moment, the president of ukraine, volodymyr zelenskyy is meeting virtually with members of the united states senate, he is asking, has been begging nato. he said this war is on your doorstep. you don t want world war three creating a no-fly zone over russia, it is here. he is asking for a no-fly zone. the problem is nato ends 500 feet from here. nato has no authority beyond that border. ukraine is not a nato country. so the idea there could be a no-fly zone has been interpreted by vladimir putin as an act of war, and because russia is a nuclear armed country, the west is alarmed by the idea that vladimir putin would use
statements of president putin. we reject any notions of the spheres of influence and we reject any limited sovereignty which russia wants to impoesz on the neighbors, be it ukraine, be it georgia, muldova or any country surrounding the russian federation. and georgia and muldova both have some areas which are russian controlled as a result. there has been the activation for the first time in nato s history of a defense force, an active response force and some of it which will be in the baltic nations and tell me what that s about and how do you feel about that? we believe that of course, given this dramatic change of the landscape and the conditions and the war which is ongoing from russia against ukraine, we think the whole eastern flank of
preparedness. today i m in beregsurany, hungary and ukraine is on the other side. on thursday i was in budapest at the city s main train station as refugees arriving, fleeing the war in ukraine. some of what i saw there after the break.