Ric Grenell to Newsmax: Ukraine ‘Disaster’ Has Only ‘Terrible and Bad Choices’By Sandy Fitzgerald
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/ric-grenell-ukraine-russia-biden/2022/01/22/id/1053553/
The situation with Ukraine is a “disaster” with only “terrible and bad choices,” says former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, and foreign leaders “smell weakness” with President Joe Biden in charge.
“All the work we did, whether it’s the border, whether it’s the Middle East, and now what we’re seeing in Europe is frustrating,” Grenell, who served under former President Donald Trump and is now a senior national security analyst for Newsmax, said on “The Count.”
“We don’t have any good choices. But the reality is that the leaders of Russia and China and a whole bunch of other places smell weakness.”
And now, with the news that the United States is starting to evacuate nonessential personnel from Ukraine, that shows that there is no plan for what will happen if Russia invades Ukraine or what will happen if Americans are left behind enemy lines, like they were in Afghanistan.
“We don’t have a handle on the numbers,” said Grenell, adding that the U.S. does not have an ambassador in Ukraine, so lower-level individuals are left to coordinate with Washinton.
“I can tell you from experience,” he said. “I’d been at the State Department for 11 years. The individuals who are in charge of our embassy in Ukraine right now are not making decisions on their own. They’re going back and organizing with the assistant secretary of state for Europe, who is Karen Donfried, who used to work for the German Marshall fund where the Germans paid part of her salary. So this is a disaster situation all over.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz has already snubbed Biden, said Grenell.
“We’re seeing reports that the French and the Germans are going to organize with the Russians and the Ukrainians on their own,” he said. “This is a disaster. The Americans have said we’re going to follow the Europeans. We’re not going to have an America first policy. We’re going to have a European policy.”
Further, Germany is insisting that it wants no lethal aid to be sent to Ukraine, and is telling NATO state Estonia that it can’t supply weapons to Ukraine.
“Where is American leadership?” said Grenell, adding that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is “totally dismissed on the world stage, and so is Joe Biden.”
Grenell said Biden must also threaten to put sanctions on the Nord Stream II pipeline and to insist that NATO states pay their fair share for defense, “or we’re not going to do anything.”
“You’ve got to have consequences for bad behavior and I would arm the Ukrainians and I would make it clear that we’re not happy to be in this situation and that [Vladimir] Putin is going to face severe economic consequences immediately, including on the pipeline.”
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