In rare public remarks, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that she believes \u201cthis last week was a turning point\u201d in the U.S. and European stance toward Ukraine and Russia, and potentially in the war in Ukraine, \u201cbecause the president is angry with Putin because he has, in effect, made the president look bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking on a panel moderated by NBC News\u2019 Andrea Mitchell at the annual Aspen Security Forum, Rice addressed the ultimatum that President Donald Trump gave Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, to accept a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days or face new secondary sanctions, which would penalize entities that do business with Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the best news that we could possibly give to the Ukrainian people is that the United States and Europe have finally aligned around the idea that Vladimir Putin will not be stopped with words. He will only be stopped if he believes that he can go no further, he can win no further,\u201d Rice said.<\/p>\n
The promise of additional weapons for Ukraine and the ultimatum for Russia haven\u2019t slowed Putin\u2019s aggression, however. Late Wednesday night, Russia launched hundreds more drones and missiles into Ukraine, killing two people, injuring dozens more and knocking out power for 80,000 families.<\/p>\n
While acknowledging that secondary sanctions can be hard to enforce, Rice pointed to ways they could still be painful for Russia. \u201cIf you\u2019re China,\u201d she said, \u201cwith an economy that\u2019s not in great shape,\u201d or \u201cIndia, which really doesn\u2019t want to be on the wrong side of this, maybe you start thinking about whether that discounted Russian oil is really worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given Rice\u2019s experience as secretary of state and before that as national security adviser, both in the George W. Bush administration, Mitchell also asked her about Marco Rubio currently holding both titles, making him the only person other than Henry Kissinger to have held both roles at once.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what?\u201d she said, \u201cI don\u2019t mind it.\u201d Rice explained that proximity is everything: \u201cTo have Marco Rubio in the White House next to the Oval Office, which is where the national security adviser is, as opposed to down in Foggy Bottom, where the secretary of state is, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a bad thing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rice also criticized the Biden administration for, in her view, having taken its time to get desperately needed weapons to Ukraine from the outset. \u201cIf you had given them everything at the beginning of the war,\u201d she said, when \u201cthe Russians were on their back foot, [Ukraine] could\u2019ve won this war outright.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In rare public remarks, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that she believes \u201cthis last week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-273588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114877547387496845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}