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Evelyn Farkas, Former Defense Department Official:
The time is not right.
Clearly, Ukraine is winning. And our objective is to have Ukraine win, to defeat Russia in Ukraine militarily, so that Russia doesn’t then turn to Georgia, to Moldova, and then to NATO countries.
The other thing I think is important to note is that Vladimir Putin is rational. The people around him are rational. They know that, if they use a nuclear device, even if they just detonate a nuclear device in a demonstration that they can do it, the world will look very different the next day.
President Biden himself has said that he warned the Russians that there will be consequences. Certainly, the United States then will take conventional military action directly against whatever Russian military unit conducted that mission. And, and the international community will resolve that no government that would use a military weapon, that would explode a military device in the context of a war, or in any context, really, is should remain in power.
And then the international community will act to pressure the Russian government, essentially, to remove Vladimir Putin. So the stakes are too high for Vladimir Putin. Let’s remember that, time and time again, Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear power, has talked about red lines.
And every time we are the Ukrainians crossed one of those lines, whether it’s attacking Crimea, whether it’s sending Javelin missiles, the Russian government has not escalated. In fact, it has backed down.
So we have to remain firm.
