nations. first lithuania, he will also visit latvia and estonia as the u.s. tries to make very clear to president putin that every inch of nato territory will be defended. that if there is any idea from the uses that they plan to expand this campaign beyond ukraine, that would put russia into a direct conflict with nato under article 5 as we discussed. nato would be forced to defend its territory. so the u.s. wants to make very clear to its baltic allies who are very scared at this point that they could potentially be the next target, that they are going to have their backs guarded by the rest of their nato allies. we heard from secretary blinken before he got on that flight to the ball ticks while he was in moldova, another russian neighbor that has been experiencing an influx of refugees from ukraine. and in moldova, blinken said that the u.s. is now talking with poland about perhaps a
save himself from his own fiasco is to bait the west boo an attack. nothing would help him more than at home o abroad than if any nato countries were to enter hostilities with russian forces. putin would use the conflict to rally his people and threaten conventional and nuclear attacks against nato. he would become a hero at home and ukraine would be forgotten. it is something that really stands it bears repeating. because it makes total sense. that could be his plan. putin has sold this war in so far as he cares about selling it at all, at least within his own country and maybe even within the small circle of people who know what he s up to at any given time. this was going to be a quick relatively bloodless operation to save the ukrainians, a people he keeps saying are indistinguishable from russians. that they are the same people.
what we mean is war. and if people are advocating for going to war against russia, they should say so out loud. because then we have to think through consequences of that. i think at this point putin will escalate the violence in ukraine because he will want to draw nato in. this whole thing has gone wrong. it s a disaster. it could unspool his regime in the long run. not in the next few days or weeks but i think this is an unrecoverable blunder for the russian regime. and i think we need to just, as painful, as horrifyingly heart breaking as it is, that we shouldn t give him the wider european and maybe even global war that i think at this point he may want as his only way out of this incredible mistake. this crime that he is now in the middle of. i love the way you put this. i m going to read part of this. you write the only way putin can
is this something that he you said he goes on and on and spins these false narratives. is it that you think he completely believes in them himself or he s trying to convince others of it or that he s not altogether there? you know, it s a really good question. it s one we spend a lot of time thinking about. he gives you some broad historical grievances, that the west created this, nato disrespected russia, one after the other to justify what he was doing. but then give you specific, we would know from information, made-up stories about ukrainian nazis threatening russian speakers in the donbas region, really hyperbolic claims of ethnic cleansing of russians. it s not borne out at all by the
an act of war. putin is trying to put that out there as a threat to stop us from helping. putin has a bit of a problem here, too. if he treats this as an act of war and if he attacks the u.s. ore nato ally, then he s pulling us in. and whatever we may do in terms of providing jet fighters or humanitarian aid or stingers and javelins or economic sanctions, putin does not want the full force of the u.s. military and ukraine coming down on him. if he takes that active things and pushes it too far, they don t want that full scale presentation. they re stretched. he doesn t want to walk that line. a lot of things putin has said would be an act of war. as far as the drone issue, if we were providing drones to the ukrainians, that would be one thing. if general mccaffery is talking about us flying drones and operating those drones for primarily targeting purposes,