CIA Director William Burns has issued a call to arms
in an article in Foreign Affairs,
calling it urgently for the US to continue sending weapons
to Ukraine.
That means the supplemental. He writes that cutting off aid
at such a crucial moment is a mistake of an
historic proportions.
Burns also says that the war has been a huge
failure for Russia
and a bonus for the CIA,
which has been able to recruit a bonanza of Russian
spies because of widespread unhappiness in Russia.
With Putin's war with the Ukraine funding stalled in Congress,
that will also in Washington to appeal urgently to Congress
is NATO's secretary General,
Liane Stoltenberg. He spoke with me after meeting with congressional
leaders yesterday.
Secretary General, thank you so much for being with us.
So you've been meeting this week on the Hill.
You've talked to Senator McConnell.
You've talked to Hakeem Jeffries.
You've talked to the speaker.
Do you have more hope now that you will get
money for Ukraine?
Yes. I I expect that the United States will find
a way to support Ukraine because this is in
US National Security interest to ensure that President Putin doesn't
win and
that Ukraine parades. So I expect that to happen.
The House Republicans have been a major problem,
and they're listening to outside
forces, to Donald Trump against it.
How do you get the House Republicans to go along
with this?
My message is that
we need to support Ukraine because
if Putin wins, that will embolden him,
but also other authoritarian leaders to use military force.
Today it is Ukraine, tomorrow it can be Taiwan.
They're obviously looking at the polls.
Public support has dropped precipitously against more money for Ukraine.
They feel America is providing all the support.
If we look at the top numbers,
European allies and Canada are providing much more support than
the United States.
If we add military and economic
support, isn't it true that there are certain weapons,
the attack on some others,
that can only come from the US?
So it's not a matter of money,
but it's a matter of giving them what they need
right now?
Yes, very much so. The Europeans are providing more support
measured in
money, if you add altogether.
But of course, much of the European money is spent
in the United States.
And they buy Javelins. They buy Patriot batteries.
They they buy a lot of other
military stuff from the United States,
partly to deliver directly to Ukraine,
but partly also to backfill their own stocks because they
have been reduced,
because they have sent a lot of equipment to to
to Ukraine.
So increased support Ukraine means more jobs in the United
States.
Are the Ukrainian soldiers running out of ammo?
Are they really stuck in their trenches without enough ability
to fight back or to go on offense?
They need more weapons, but not least they need more
ammunition.
And we all expected perhaps more success in the offensive
they launched last year.
At the same time, we have to recognize the huge
achievements the Ukrainians have made when this war has started.
Most experts believe that Russia would control the Kiev and
and Ukraine within days and weeks.
The fact is that Ukraine's have been able to liberate
50% of the territory that Russia controlled at the beginning
of the war.
Then they have liberated part of the Black Sea,
opening up the corridor for export of grain
and they are inflicting heavy losses on the
Russian armed forces by a fraction of our defence budgets.
We are significantly using the combat capacity of Russia.
So this is an investment,
our security, which actually all that paid off.
But Russia seems to have an unlimited supply of soldiers
to throw into this battle.
By one estimate that I heard from Ukrainian officials shared
with the US,
there's some 360,000 casualties already of Russian soldiers,
and they keep coming. Can't Vladimir Putin outweigh Vladimir Szalinski?
So we have to prove that democracies are not lazy
as a president.
Putin believes that democracies are lazy and we don't have
the staying power.
We need to prove him wrong by continuing to support
Ukraine.
And we need to realize that we have inflicted all
these heavy losses on the Russian armed forces.
More than 300,000 casualties, thousands of armored vehicles destroyed,
hundreds of of planes without putting a single US or
NATO soldier in harm's way.
If Ukraine runs out of weapons and can't continue with
the war,
is it stalemated already And will they be unable to
go on offence once the spring comes again?
We hope for more achievements during the offensive.
Last year that didn't happen,
but they are able to continue to ensure that Russia
is paying a high cost
and at some stage the calculus has to change in
Moscow Now They believe that they will win on the
battlefield.
We need to ensure that they understand that Putin will
never win on the battlefield and has to sit down
and negotiate an agreement.
There are many who are saying it's time to negotiate,
that Vladimir Zelensky has to give up hopes of
getting all of Crimea and they have to sit down
and negotiate new borders and some sort of a ceasefire
line.
I would like this war to end as soon as
possible and the quick but the but the quickest way
to end the war is to lose the war.
So of course what we need is a solution where
Ukraine
prevails. And there are no signs that Russia has given
up the ambition of controlling Ukraine to ensure that
Ukraine is part of Russia's heroin influence.
If Ukraine were to lose to Vladimir Putin,
what is the threat to NATO,
to the border states, to
to Poland? The threat is that
if we allow President Putin to win in Ukraine,
that will
teach him a lesson that when he violates international law,
when he invades another country,
then he gets what he wants
and he wants to re establish
a Europe where Russia is able to control their neighbors.
This is not only about Europe,
this is also about Asia and and China,
because this is closely watched in China
and therefore it is in
the interests of all NATO allies,
also United States, to ensure that Putin is not successful
in Ukraine.