was here in d.c. last week, i met with him, at the time, this was just a week ago, he said they haven t seen any changes in the situation in the breakaway rege championship borders, between moldova and ukraine. now, of course, we ve seen explosions there. i think it s testament to the fact that vladimir putin still has tricks up his sleeve. right. on friday, we heard from a russian commander who was saying that the russian new goal was to push west along the coast of the ukraine to reach the moldovan borders. american analysts are skeptical, whether they can do that based on taking cities in ukraine. but russia has other leaders in which to try and destabilize moldova which is another country much smaller than ukraine. has less than 3 million population that has hoved between russia and the west in the years but more firmly in the western camp may seek to pull
good morning. so much to talk about with you today. let s bring today, russia, gazprom cutting off sales of gas to poland and bulgaria. those countries say they can weather that for some time. but what are the practical impacts not just on those two countries but on russia itself. reporter: yeah, willie, russia now striking out at the economy of europe, using energy as a weapon. it s something putin has threatened to do for a long time. he s now done it, albeit in a relatively small way. as you said both the polish and bulgarian governments are saying they were planning to wean themselves off of russian hydrocarbons anyway. this is a faster time frame than they were expecting but they can manage this. willie, i ll tell you what thing that really matters it s a whole lot warmer in eastern europe today than on february 24th the day.war started. so the demand for gas, not as high as it was. the president of the european commission is calling this
levels. i was just thinking the same as you, not a great gas station, not a great army. senator, you re right, the biden administration deserves an enormous amount of credit. and the europeans that i spoke to said there was a sea change in how americans approached them over ukraine. they spoke, they shared intelligence with them as allies and that was a real recognition within the white house that this coalition was going to work if the united states and europe were in lockstep over things like sanctions and weapons supplies. so, the coalition has held. it s in a very good position. the battle on the ground is working. the ukrainians are taking the fight to the russians in a way we didn t imagine. what worries you? what keeps you up? you look at intelligence all the time. you look at the armed services all the time. at this stage of the battle, two months in, what are you worried about? there are two things enter related. what is putin s next step? here s embarrassed. i wouldn t wa
to see their engagement and their involvement in this was really impressive. so, you know, it used to be the old saying was politics stops at the water s edge. that hasn t the case in recent history. but i think in this situation, it is, certainly the case in the u.s. senate. i mean, if you interviewed ten of us you couldn t tell which party was which. right. which is obviously the way it ought to be. yes. that s happening, senator in poland as well with a very divided country coming together to embrace ukrainians. if you look at the headlines even this week, what is it, wednesday? you have really a change in rhetoric towards ukraine here in the u.s. lloyd austin using the word winning. we have this incredible meeting in germany with 40 nations getting together. and it really this list that you just read to us, it seems to me that maybe we are edging towards doing things a little differently toward russia. maybe. we ll see. well, you know, this will go
germany. i think what they re basically saying we re prepared to cut off gas. there s mutual dependence here. russia needs the revenues from it. the germans need the gas in order to run their factories, heat their homes. i think what this is a bit of a shot across the german bow. and it s russia saying we can mete out economic sanctions as well as being on the receiving end, and the revenues they would lose by doing this are really small, joe. again, germany is the big prize in this game. so, i think that s what this is about. willie, it s interesting, secretary austin, over the past several days, far more aggressive in language about russia saying saying russians are just acting abhorrently. we re going to provide the heavy weaponry they need to only help ukraine survive, but also to drain the russian military so they can never do this again. that s certainly language that some people in america wanted to hear for some time.