borders, on the country borders, since world war ii in europe. and that s why everybody has to act, because putin will not stop in crimea. next target will be east ukraine, next kiev, next baltics, because it s a logical dictatorship. he needs to add to his portfolio of successes. if people are poisoned by this nationalistic propaganda, it will require more and more blood and more and more territorial concessions at the expense of russian neighbors. all right. every russian scholar i ve talked to believes that both bush and obama just don t understand putin. obviously, you ve been somebody that s been saying this at a time when others weren t, now a lot of people sort of share your view on putin. what does move him? is it money? is it transactional? if you go after these billionaire the oligarchs of russia do they have influence over him? probably yes. it might be late, but still it s the best chance, because putin already has burnt all the bridges.
maceda in moscow, that public support for putin is now up in the last week essentially since this crisis that he created with the west. what explains that to you? no, i think it s just history repeats itself. 24-7 propaganda, keeps talking about restoring great russia, and it reminds me what was happening in germany in the late 30s. if we had the measure ratings in 1938, hitler would be 90 plus. people are paralyzed by the magic of putin s attack on crimea where he can restore what many believe are russian territorial integrity, wrongly believe, without a single shot. you ve been very critical of president obama, in particular, believing he has not stood up against putin enough in various ways, and that this is the result of that.
oligarchs who keep their money not in iran, not in venezuela, not china, but in europe and america. and you were it s interesting, you were saying these sanctions are not going to work if europe is not on board, and that in many ways you wrote in this op-ed yesterday, in many ways because of russia s you didn t say it this way, but i ve seen others say it this way russia has essentially bought off europe right now. do you think europe can be rallied to the side of the u.s. on these sanctions? someone has to take a lead. and it was always the united states of america to take the lead opposing the dictators. and this time, obama has to rally support in europe. i think the european public opinion is slowly changing its position. i think people recognize that what we re seeing in crimea, it s not a referendum. it s not democracy, because can you not do a referendum in ten days at gunpoint. and it s naked aggression, and it s a forced change in the
but we got an interesting statement from putin s spokesman this morning. in it, the spokesman says despite trying to explain russia s position, quote, we have hit a wall of no understanding. the spokesman added, it is rather sad and what is worse is that it is very bad from the point of view of possible repercussions. nbc s jim maceda has more on what this spokesman was trying to say from moscow. reporter: hi, chuck. well, kremlin watchers tell us putin is genuinely frustrated by the apparent gulf between his position on ukraine and obama s. putin wouldn t understand why after so much talking obama still sees the crisis uniquely as a russian military intervention, or why a pro-western, pro-nato nationalist government in kiev is such an existential threat to russia s interests. meanwhile, putin s actions in crimea clearly resonate inside russia. his latest approval rating is a whopping 70%. i mean, that s the highest since he began his third term some two
parliament stood and applauded for the crimean delegation, saying it wants to secede from ukraine and join russia. a public vote is set a week from sunday. it s a chance for russian to restore crimea 60 years after khrushchev gave it to ukraine. president obama said he s not going to let that happen. the proposed referendum on the future of crimea would violate the ukrainian constitution and violate international law. any discussion about the future of ukraine must include the legitimate government of ukraine. in 2014, we are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders. there was no red line in the president s statement there. president, though, also outlined punishments for russia, and it includes travel restrictions and plans to sanction individual businesses and individuals.