Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that Russian President Vladimir Putin could not win in Ukraine because its people’s will to fight is “extraordinary.”
Rubio said, “Look, Putin can’t win. He’s headed to one of two directions here. He is either headed towards a very costly military victory or a quagmire, which his military can’t achieve victory. Even a costly military victory, he’s going to have to stay forever and face an insurgency. He’s fighting 40 something million people that don’t want his forces there. No matter what the doers, he will never be able to install a puppet government because the Ukrainians will overthrow them and kill those people. I think we have to start thinking through the permutations of this. There has to be a real legitimate Ukrainian state. I don’t know why we can’t support them even if it’s an insurgency.”
He added, “I think the will to fight, which is one of the hardest things to measure, is extraordinary on the Ukrainian side. There are real and growing questions about the morale and the technical capability of the Russian forces. That said, if, in fact, Putin is able to achieve, for example, a military victory, that doesn’t mean he’s won because he’ll face Ukrainians that will fight him and carry that out. There will be a legitimate Ukrainian government no matter what happens militarily on the ground.”
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