West needs to ‘get engaged, show Putin we mean it,’ says former NATO Supreme Allied Commander

Russia Today launched one of its heaviest missile barrages yet across Ukraine, killing at least 36 people and wounding more than 100. Even a children’s hospital that performed 7000 surgeries on sick kids every year was hit hard. That’s according to local officials. And I’ve been speaking to the former Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, Wesley Clark, about what’s at stake for Ukraine and for NATO in its face off with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. General Clark, welcome to the program. Thank you. Can I ask you, because it really does seem like the Russians are stepping it up. On Ukraine, there’s been a massive barrage of missiles, a massive hit on a children’s hospital, and dozens dead and wounded. What do you think Putin is thinking now? I think Putin thinks he’s going to be able to consolidate the momentum that he has by punishing the Ukrainian people. This is this horrible Russian attitude that we’re going to kill you and murder you, and you love us and join us. It’s an imperialist attitude going back 100, 200 years. But in this case, it’s delivered with modern ordnance in a brutal way. We never thought we’d see something like this in Europe. And yet here it is, more than two years into the fight, and the West hasn’t mustered sufficient strength to drive Putin back. Well, we’ll talk about that in a moment and how they should. But first, I want to ask you about the timing, because the head of Lithuania has said tweeted Putin sends his greetings to the NATO summit by bombing a children’s hospital in Ukraine. As if any clarification was needed as to why Ukraine must have all possible support now and real guarantees for security in the future. So, you know, he’s from one of those Baltic states, which I guess gets it better than all the countries that are farther away. So to his question, what should NATO be doing now? Well, first of all, NATO needs to put a lot more air defense in there. There are many countries in NATO, and I don’t want to have to name them all that have Patriot air defense systems that are sitting on them, that are not doing anything for the country. NATO’s line of defense runs through Ukraine. NATO’s line of deterrence runs through Ukraine. And so all an air defense that these countries have that are not on the front line should be pushed forward to Ukraine. That’s the first thing. Second thing is you have to create ambiguity. You have to end you in Putin’s mind as to what comes next. You can’t simply say, here’s what we won’t do. We don’t do this. We won’t do that. You’ve got to start talking like French. President Macron has talked about creating ambiguity. Send those French aircraft and put some French troops on the ground in Odessa. Put engineers in there to help rebuild the energy infrastructure. Get engaged. Show Putin we mean it. And what about future security guarantees? We’re talking on the eve of the NATO summit. 75 years of NATO. What can Ukraine expect? It won’t have a line to joining NATO. But what about security guarantees going forward? Well, I think the pledge for equipment is good, and that’s what’s going to come out of this. But there’s not going to be any security guarantee. Christiane, unless you’re willing to put U.S. and NATO troops into Ukraine, that’s the only way a security guarantee would work. And that, of course, would cross the self-imposed, standards that NATO has put up for itself of not wanting to really be engaged. Want Ukraine to win? Don’t really want to get engaged and face off with Russia. Hope we can discourage Putin indirectly. Hey, we got two and a half years of that. How well is it worked? Not so well. And you’re dealing with a country in Russia that’s 24/7 mobilized its industrial base. It’s building a group of adversarial nations against the West. It’s not good. Time is working on for Russia right now rather than for the West. And from the beginning of this, we’ve misunderstood the Russian strategy and the Russian ability to endure the sanctions and the pinpricks of weapons that come in. We’ve always been too late to level with what we’ve provided. And in this conflict. the F-16s have already been discounted by the Russians. I figured out what to do to to to work against them. Or at least they think they have. Just like they did with Himars. And and they’ll figure out their attack comes very quickly also. So in war, you have to get the initiative. You have to build your momentum and you have to sustain it. In this case, we’re not fighting this as war. We’re fighting this as a diplomatic holding action, hoping that somehow Mr. Putin will say after a couple of years, gee, I’ve made a mistake. I really want out of this. And there’s no indication that that’s going to happen. General Clark, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour speaks with Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.), the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe on the latest Russian missile strikes in Ukraine. #CNN #News

37 comments

  4. Clark is bloody liar. He command with Nato during bombing and land agression at Serbia 1999. They èven bombed our state televison and chineese ambassy.Thiman and the whole USA leadrrship are war criminals responsble for milions dead people. And Amampur is bloody beech!!!!

  6. who has the general fought against but if he's suggesting showing Russia you mean it then he better know Russia is not Iraq, etc.

  8. They pushed Putin to the wall. Must Ukraine be a NATO member? Why not allow Ukraine to maintain her neutrality? I blame the West for this senseless war.

  10. More like stop sending weapons and stop the war . The land is basically Russia considering it was them who defeated the Nazis. Looks like their back again

  11. What a horrible program filled with nothing but nonsense. Putin doesn't want usa missiles on his doorstep. Did we allow Russia to put and keep missiles in cuba ?

  17. "NATO supreme" ….WHAT ????

    He couldn't enter Serbia for 78 days until he order to attack electricity, schools, bridges, civikians, China ambassy…..

    He's just "amarocan general" product if amarcan mind

  19. Talibans are in charge Afghanistan after how many years of NATO? How many casualties?
    Libya is in a state of non state after NATO campaign, how many years ago?
    So the only shock to this man is because war is happening in Europe! How about Yougoslavia?
    If we are equally humans, NATO should have taken a very strong stance against Rwanda and Uganda for the10 millions Congolese dead in Eastern DRC. Unfortunately, Rwanda and Uganda are lovely allies of the West, just like Israel.
    What a world!

  20. Who r u to poke nose in everyone's matters ????? So called Western democracy human rights and civilization is already exposed in Gaza…you war monder old colonial daciots r not any ashamed of your filtth !!!!

  24. When an American says that NATO countries are sitting on Patriot systems and that the French need to send aircraft in…….whilst the US sits on a ton of Patriots and has not given a single aircraft. Let’s not even mention thousands of Abrams and Bradley’s sitting gathering dust in storage…..

  26. Democracy means nothing for this warmonger. People in NATO countries don't want to send troops to fight in Ukraine, other than that, everything else was done. Even sending more planes or patriot systems – who-s going to operate them, you don't think for a moment Ukraine has already enough experts?

  32. The mans sick in the head it's the West fuelling this war, and who engineered it, how would they like this on their very doorstep, this is not Iraq, or Libya, you're dealing with, this is a highly proficient nuclear super-power, having said that it is also NOT the Soviet Union.

  33. Wesley Clark did well in serbia and he is completely right about engagement against russia. The only thing the USA is lacking is a president like Ronald Reagan, fearless and determined, willing to confront any enemy. Greetings from Croatia 👋🏻

  35. There is no difference between what is going on now in Ukraine and what was happening in Iraq. All based on lies. Amanpour, the worst-case scenario.

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