trying to stage a coup in ukraine, which is interesting why ukrainians would be a part of that. what message did biden need to send today? and do you think is it wise for biden to kind of help putin save face and offer him an offramp, or should he double down? you know, there are all these ideas of offramps and face-saving measures are appropriate. i think frankly the call today was a little bit puzzling. it came on relatively short notice as far as we can tell from the public perspective, just on a short notice, right before the holidays. and the topic was ukraine. and this is in light of the fact that within about a week or so, a little bit more than a week, the russians and the u.s. are going to start significant consultations headed up by senior diplomats. so the reason for this call isn t entirely clear. i mean, there is an idea here that he s just checking the bloc
at. and some are accusing kyiv of simply denying locals their basic rights. yeah, and that s going to be part of that whole stoerks fushlgs but not only he would daush moscow and other people there who was. we need nothing and do something about 2. people in could you tell in. you ve already heard it when they talk about kose vol when they went in and took it it. are there any offramps to deescalate this in your view?
see how that helps either mr. putin or russia. plus, he s paying a price for this, which is the strengthening of nato and transatlantic relations, at least so far. so he may have pushed off even further the idea of ukraine entering nato or nato entering ukraine, but he s paid a considerable price for it. do you think that the administration has so far handled this well? they have put they have consolidated the west, the deterrents angle seems to be fairly strongly in place. now do you think there is also a clear diplomatic off-ramp? the short answer is, yes, i do think they ve handled this well. they ve strengthened nato, strengthened ukraine s ability to resist an occupation, they ve threatened all sorts of economic sanctions. as you say, fareed, they ve provided various diplomatic offramps both in the eastern part of ukraine if people want to revive the so-called normandy process as well as what we were just talking about with european
ukrainian/russian border, is there any hope of a diplomatic solution here or resolution? well, i think the biden administration is exactly right. they re going to continue to work every possible avenue and make it clear that diplomatic offramps are always available, that vladimir putin until he actually has tanks rolling in or troops going in, there s still an opportunity to avoid what will be a catastrophic war and will result in tens of thousands of people potentially dying. this is a war of choice, not a war of necessity. but it s important that the united states and the international community make it clear no country can redraw the borders of another country by force. we fought two world wars. nato was designed in response to fears of russian aggression. it s a defensive organization. and so it s important that this conduct not be permitted. i think the president has worked very closely with our allies, with our nato allies, our european allies to be sure everyone is on the same
bite from our interview. the leaders we met with in brussels and lithuania and poland see the situation the same way we do. bill: it might have taken a while to get there. behind the scenes, jen he talked about offramps for putin. what do you here about a possibility that would give an offramp. i don t think it did take a long time to get the nato allies united. what is different from last august, they say that what the biden administration did this time that they didn t do last august is they built a very strong alliance and they have been informing those nato leaders. germ any has actually been germany has actually been on board. the offramps are limited.