And also potentially to make more stops in europe to continue this alliance held as closely together as possible. they are rightly pleased with how lockstep the west has been during this and standing up to putin, but they are nervous that months ahead, as this conflict perhaps drags on, that will be harder to do, particularly as the economic costs, if, indeed, europe cuts off russian oil and energy, that that could plunge parts of europe into a recession, that may make it harder and some of the leaders, in other european nations, who have stood with biden to this point, may face domestic challenges at home. and there s one right on the horizon, of course. that s the french election on sunday. and that runoff between emmanuel macron and marine la penn, and if la pen were to win, it could destabilize all of europe, not just this alliance. thank you so much for being with us this morning. i want to show you a pretty extraordinary scene from an ukrainian port city that is west of mariupo
Coup, but it s not going to happen before russian troops are destroyed in ukraine. and gary, i m just wondering, you have been so critical of western european countries and the united states on how they have permitted and by silence condoning putin s actions until 54 days ago. how is the united states and the west supposed to deal with putin going forward? i wish we had more time to talk about actions or more likely, inactions of the free world that led to this disaster, to this tragedy. and now we, your program just talked about the last stand of the heroes who are defending mariupol. and, yeah, probably they have hours left before they will be captured and most likely killed
Not to give ukrainians weapons to keep them in the fight, but what can we give them in order to make them win. that s the difference. and rick, i want to just kind of focus on what you just did. you were just in poland with many of the refugees. you wrote a great piece about it. tell me what you saw, what you experienced, and the lessons that you took from that? thank you, jose. i was in poland with the humanitarian organization, c.a.r.e., where i m on the board there helping poland deal with the 2.5 million refugees in poland. that s about 6% of the population. that would be 25 million people here in the u.s. one of the things we have to think about is, is this part of putin s strategy? the weaponization of refugees. he s hoping to destabilize countries on ukraine s border. democratic, nato countries, like poland, like romania. like moldova, who are trying to deal with this influx of
Refugees. so not only does the west help the ukrainians, we have to help the countries around ukraine support this incredible flow of refugees, which is taxing their economies. you know, that s part of putin s battle plan, to kind of destabilize those countries with refugees. he did the same thing in syria. he did, indeed. and the weaponization of refugees, i m so glad you put it in those terms. rick, there s a great part of your extraordinary article in time, when you talk about you re in a line and you meet a gentlemen who was reliving history in so many ways. yes. he was an 80-year-old physicist from kharkiv, and he said in 1941, he had to leave ukraine to go to russia, because the germans invaded. now he was leaving ukraine to go
And also in the panel that we just heard, it was very important point was made about weaponization of refugees. that s also part of putin s plan, to use ukrainian war to destabilize europe. because as he has been saying all the time, it s a war against nato. it s a war against the free world, and putin doesn t mind using every weapon, every tool at his disposal. whether it s a master, whether it s bombarding people into submission, or using refugees to create political chaos across the continent. you know, i was speaking with the four-star general in command of southcom, gary, just this last week. and she was talking about how russia and china are doing what they can in latin america to help destabilize those countries, so that they could somehow affect the united states. so it s a big picture, gary,