Rubio: ‘Putin’s Not the Same Guy He Was Five Years Ago’; ‘Would Rather Have WWIII than Be Humiliated’ by the West

Friday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s risk calculus has changed over the years.

Rubio asserted that “Putin’s not the same guy he was five years ago” and “would rather have World War III than be humiliated” by the West.” He added that Putin, now willing to take more risks, “poses real dangers.”

“[I] can tell you that there is great danger for two reasons,” Rubio outlined. “The first is you now have a, you know, 70% of the Russian military power is active and engaged and deployed very close to NATO forces. So, the risk of miscalculation or, you know, a lot of the, for example, these countries are now providing planes to Ukraine. So, it would not take much for a Russian anti-air element to confuse a Romanian jet or a Polish jet with maybe one from Ukraine and shoot it down. And suddenly, you’ve got a conflict.”

“The other is, you know, at some point, Putin is going to start targeting these supply convoys, like all these things that are being provided to Ukraine, they have to be driven in,” he continued. “And at some point, he’s going to start bombing these convoys. And so you worry about, you know, what could happen there. I mean, the border isn’t as easy to see from the air as it is on the ground. So, there’s danger there. And then the third is Putin’s not the same guy he was five years ago. And what I mean by that is that his risk calculus is not the same. There are risks he’s willing to take now that he wasn’t willing to take a few years ago. And a lot of the people who are running this whole thing and reacting to it, I don’t think fully appreciate it. … This guy is not going to accept any outcome. He would rather have World War III than be humiliated or appear to have been backing down to the West. And I think that poses real dangers.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent