Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s message to the Sunday news talk shows this weekend was that Russia has already seen a “strategic defeat” in its invasion of Ukraine, which follows what’s widely considered in the West to have been greatly ‘stalled’ progress of its forces amid a fiercer than expected Ukrainian resistance.
“If you step back and look at this, this has already been a dramatic strategic setback for Russia, and I would say a strategic defeat,” Blinken told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union”. Blinken was asked at the start of the segment about the potential for further sanctions on Russia in the interview.
He explained that the Kremlin’s “special operation” can be considered a failure given the three stated goals of Moscow going into it on Feb.24.
“They had three aims going into this. One was to subjugate Ukraine to Russia’s will, to take away its sovereignty and independence. The second was to assert Russian power. The third was to divide the west and NATO. On all three fronts, its already lost,” Blinken assessed.
“Ukraine, its sovereignty and independence is gonna be there a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is gonna be on the scene, the Russian military has dramatically underperformed, its economy is reeling, and the west, NATO are more united than any time I can remember,” he explained.