be fought and cannot be won. and therefore, it is reckless what russia is doing, just to talk about the potential use of nuclear weapons, the way they have done over the last weeks and months. our response is to strengthen our deterrence and defence, including by more nato troops in the eastern part of the alliance. tens of thousands of troops on the nato command, backed by ships and planes, to remove any room for miscalculation or misunderstanding in moscow about nato s readiness to protect and defend all allies. we have two responsibilities. one is to support ukraine we do, and the other is to prevent this war from escalating to a fully fledged war between russia and nato. would you talk to vladimir putin right now or do you regard him, now, as a war criminal? and, as they ve said in the united states and some other capitals, an architect of genocide ? because if you think that, then, presumably, you would not believe he d be a leader that you could talk to and do business with.
of power and influence, a significant figure in whatever happens next in this ukraine crisis. i ll ask one more. i mean, do you regard vladimir putin as a war criminal and an architect of genocide ? that s for the international criminal court to make the final decisions on that. what we do, nato analysts do, is to help to collect evidence and to support all efforts to establish a judicial process and to make this an issue for, for instance, the international criminal court. then, of course, it s also extremely important that we make sure that russia cannot, with impunity, continue to act the way they have acted in ukraine. and that s the reason why we also provide all the support to ukraine. the russian narrative, of course, is that all of this, and their invasion, was prompted and caused by nato expansionism. is ukrainian membership of nato now a dead issue? are you now saying it s never going to happen? what i m saying is that our
rhetoric is dangerous. it s reckless and irresponsible. and russia has actually agreed they did that early this year, that a nuclear war should never be fought and cannot be won. and therefore, it is reckless what russia is doing, just to talk about the potential use of nuclear weapons, the way they have done over the last weeks and months. our response is to strengthen our deterrence and defence, including by more nato troops in the eastern part of the alliance. tens of thousands of troops on the nato command, backed by ships and planes, to remove any room for miscalculation or misunderstanding in moscow about nato s readiness to protect and defend all allies. we have two responsibilities. one is to support ukraine we do, and the other is to prevent this war from escalating to a fully fledged war between russia and nato. would you talk to vladimir putin right now or do you regard him, now,
ukrainian artillery is, quote, frustrating russian efforts to advance in the donbas and there is a lot of fighting but not a lot of progress for russian forces in key-eastern cities. what happens if russia cannot meet any of its goals in the east? well, i think they will continue. i don t think russia s going away. they as i have indicated before, i think putin might try to call a cease-fire at this particular point. something i don t think president zelenskyy could agree to. but nonetheless, that would put the burden on west of the west and those who were support ug crane to say perhaps there is a way to negotiate an end to this on a more timely basis. um but i think at this point, putin is not going away. i don t think he can afford to be seen as losing it, not only not to mention losing it in its entirety. i think it will be a crushing blow for him, call into question his leadership, and perhaps even stimulate some kind of a a reaction amongst the russian people. criticizing
ukraine. isn t the answer to that yes? that in that sense, yes, this is a proxy war between the west and russia? is that, do you accept that description? no, not necessarily. look, i m not sure what was in secretary austin s mind but i think what he meant is that if russia cannot defeat ukraine with a much larger army, with greater sophisticated weaponry, and much military, then it has to think about creating acts of aggression against any other country in europe or any place else. and that certainly is degrading russia s ability or thoughts about their ability to do so. i would think that s what the secretary meant, but at the end of the day, yes, we don t want to see russia go into moldova. we don t want to go see into a nato country, poland or lithuania or any other such countries. in that respect, i think that s