Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was concerned Russian President Vladimir Putin would attack a NATO country.
Rubio said, “There really is no way for Russia and Putin to win this war or any of their objectives. Putin is down to two choices here. Number one, they can design defensive lines and say here is where we’re going to draw some lines and this is the territory we’ll try to hold on to and concentrate forces in that regard or, B, they can retreat and continue to lose territory. They certainly don’t have offensive capability right now. The worry becomes the unpredictability of what Putin does in a situation like that. If he decides that, for example, the NATO arming and the European arming and the U.S. arming of Ukraine is causing him not to just lose his war and undermine his grip on power, but perhaps threatening his own forces inside of Russia. I think it’s quite possible that he could end up striking some of these distribution places where these supplies are coming through including inside Poland. A lot of talk about nuclear, but the thing I worry about is a Russian attack inside NATO territory, for example, aiming at the airport in Poland or some other distribution point.”
Anchor Dana Bash asked, “Would NATO have to respond?”
Rubio said, “I think it would depend on the nature, of the strike and how the other allies within NATO would respond. there certainly would be an attack on one. So, therefore, certainly NATO will have to respond to it.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN