congress is working on sending $33 billion more in aid and military equipment to ukraine, but the ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is pushing the u.s. to take another move, to name russia a state sponsor of terrorism. cnn asked the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. about the biden administration position on that. i think russia has put itself on that list of state sponsors of terror. they are carrying out terror acts of people against ukrainian people, against ukrainian civilians. it s not necessary for us to put them on. okay. joining me now, jason, professor of practice at the middlebury institute of international studies for ten years and led the state department that determines whether nations make that list. good to have you. first of all, just a practical question, what practical changes
speaker pelosi has called for the biden administration to designate russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. she said, quote, if russia is not listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, tear up the list. will you do that not tear up the riis, will you put russia on the willist? well, i think russia has put itself on that list of state sponsors of terror. they are carrying out terror acts against the ukrainian people, against ukrainian civilians. you just mentioned they attacked a school with 90 people. imagine the terror that these people felt as the school was being attacked, so they have defined their role on that list. it s not necessary for us to put them on. so you think they deserve to be on the list but you re not saying the biden administration is going to put them on the list? they certainly deserve to be called out for the acts of terror they are committing. we have said they ve committed war crimes. we ve indicated that they what they are doing is trying to
table against the russians. how they use that intelligence is up to them. what we want to make sure is they have the equipment and the information, the wherewithal to fight this war in a way that helps them to defend their own sovereignty. speaker pelosi has called for the biden administration to designate russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. she said, quote, if russia is not listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, tear up the list. will you do that not tear up the list, will you put russia on the list? well, i think russia has put itself on that list of state sponsors of terror. they are carrying out terror acts against the ukrainian people, against ukrainian civilians. you just mentioned they attacked a school with 90 people. imagine the terror that these people felt as the school was being attacked, so they have defined their role on that list. it s not necessary for us to put
villas in miami and can t live without oysters or the so-called gender freedom. this is not the problem. the problem is some of these people are there mentally not here with our people, not with russia, blah, blah, blah especially russian people. the true patriots, blood pressure bloop, bloops. there is another piece of interesting data i want to get. cnn interviewed some of these downed russian troops. they had interesting things to say, too. this is what some of these prisoners of war in ukraine said to cnn. i want to tell our commander in chief to stop terror acts in ukraine because when we come back, we ll rise against him. you won t hide this for long. there are many like us here. sooner or later, we ll come home. in a cnn private interview, one of them said the crimes we committed, we will all be judged. these are public interviews and interviews given to cnn. you know, it may be questionable they sort of appeared under the geneva conventions speaking as prisoners of war so tha
i think the comments by these pilots were critical, too, showing that the russian military is demoralized. soldiers don t fight for di dic dictators, they fight for a cause, for their families and their nations. you mentioned comments by the russian soldiers. i m going to read some of those. cnn had a chance to speak with at least three captured russian air force pilots. they seem to disagree with this invasion. they didn t seem to be talking under duress or anything. here are a few quotes. i want to tell our commander-in-chief to stop terror acts in ukraine because when we come back, we ll rise against him. the crimes that we committed, we all will be judged. one russian pilot said his unit was told it was an operation in the donetsk area and not an attack on the whole country. my division was totally against it.