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Amb. McFaul: Putin’s Fight In Ukraine ‘Is Just A Proxy War For His Fight Against’ The U.S. - YouTube
Channel: MSNBC
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and joining me now former u.s ambassador
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to russia michael mcfaul and ambassador
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just first off your reaction to russia's
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uh strike on that nuclear power plant
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obviously disaster averted but ukraine's
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uh foreign minister said this could have
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been 10 times worse than chernobyl
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well i agree with the colleagues you had
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on earlier today this is outrageous this
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is reckless
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super scary
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and the fact that putin is willing to do
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this i think should sober up everybody
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uh we've been debating what what his
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intentions are and what he's going to do
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for many weeks now and every time we
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hope that he's going to do something
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more cautious remember the debate we had
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before he invaded right lots of people
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were hoping for small strikes remember
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that land bridge we talked about for ad
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nauseam that he's just going to do that
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that's all he wanted the independent
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republics
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every time we have these debates he
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surprises us by doing even more reckless
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radical kinds of things and as he
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increasingly uh is feeling pressure at
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home because of the sanctions
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that we're putting on him and he is
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seeing that this war is not going the
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way he wanted to we should expect more
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of this erratic behavior
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to that point i feel like some of these
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diplomatic cliches have become really
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outdated but is there any path for putin
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to go backwards to de-escalate to get
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out of this without making the situation
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10 times worse
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well of course the biden administration
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from what i understand i do interact
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with them frequently
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are doing anything they can
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to create those conditions the goal here
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is peace
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the goal here is the end of this war the
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goal is to have those russian soldiers
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go home
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and so if mr putin is willing to
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negotiate that
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i think the the biden administration and
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other leaders around the world would
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lift sanctions and that kind of trade
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would be available
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i just don't see anything that putin has
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said
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uh in the last several weeks and most
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certainly not in the last eight or nine
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days that suggests that he wants those
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kinds of off-ramps right instead
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he just doubles down on what he said at
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the beginning of the war i'm going to
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destroy the ukrainian military and i'm
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going to
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carry out de-nazification
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that is regime change that is uh what
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he's stated his goal is and so far
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there's no evidence that has uh suggests
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that he has rethought those objectives
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well and speaking of regime change here
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in this country we've had senator
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lindsey graham who last night again this
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morning
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appeared to suggest that putin ought to
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be assassinated or overthrown he
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speculated about if there's a brutus
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like figure in russia who could who
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could end this i wonder what you think
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of language like that with tensions so
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high and what will the kremlin do with
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an american politician using that kind
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of language
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well you know when we have our analytic
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hats on off the record we can talk about
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different scenarios
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uh about
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how these things happen in fact i'm
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about to go teach my class on political
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mobilization and and democratic
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breakthroughs uh right after we're done
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talking right
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but it is not appropriate to talk about
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those things in public just for a very
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simple reason
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that quote will be quoted on russian
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national television ad nauseam and it
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will reinforce what putin tells his
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people is that he is fighting us in
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ukraine he i think people really need to
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understand that this is just a proxy war
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for his fight against us that's the way
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he frames us the regime there is just
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the puppet american regime uh put in
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place by us and so those kinds of quips
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just help him with him explaining the
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war at home and doing that at the same
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time she just reported that the
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information space in russia is
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increasingly closing he just cut uh
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putin just shut down deutsche tv the
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number one independent uh station
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television station uh in russia he just
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shut down echo of moscow this iconic
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radio station it's been around for a
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couple decades a number one source of
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independent news inside russia he's
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doing that of course for a purpose if
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the war would be going better he
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wouldn't be doing that but as those
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places shut down and those are places
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that used to host me by the way uh
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speaking in russian to russians that has
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now shut down it just uh it means that
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the russian state-controlled media uh
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has more control over the narrative and
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they'll be broadcasting quips like that
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to see see we told you so the americans
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uh did regime change in ukraine back in
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2014 and now they want to do regime
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change here in russia today
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[Music]
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