Blinken: Russian Aggression Will Be Met with United Response

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“What Putin wants most of all is to make sure that he can control the destiny of Ukraine,” Council President Ivo Daalder tells CNN’s Larry Madowo.

January 20, 2022

Screen shot of Ivo Daalder speaking on CNN about Russia's standoff with Ukraine.

“[Putin] now thinks he has the power to reassert Russian control over its immediate neighbors, and that’s what this is all really about," says Council President and former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder.

"It's not about NATO, it’s certainly not about a threat that Ukraine poses to Russia. Russia is a nuclear power, Ukraine is not; Russia is the largest military power in Europe, and Ukraine is a relatively small power in Europe; Russia has a seat at the UN Security Council, Ukraine does not. And for all those reasons the real issue is: who controls the destiny of Ukraine. And Vladimir Putin wants Moscow to do that, rather than Kyiv.”