“Putin saw weakness and disunity,” McMaster, a retired army lieutenant general, told CNN in a phone interview. “But what he got instead was an extremely high level of unity.”
“The Biden administration needs credit for the extent to which it has promoted international unity against Russia, particularly in the economic and diplomatic spheres,” said McMaster, now a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
The former Trump official called on Republicans and Democrats to come together to address Russia’s aggression.
“There should be no partisan division in Ukraine. No one should use Ukraine to score partisan points,” McMaster said.
McMaster stressed that a bipartisan approach is crucial for the present moment and that there will be time later to debate why deterrence failed to stop Putin from invading in the first place. However, he pointed to the Biden administration’s “humiliating withdrawal and surrender” from Afghanistan, which he says led Moscow to expect a weak US response to the invasion of Ukraine.
Outlook McMaster called on the United States to increase its support for Ukraine, including by providing more drones, missiles and other military capabilities.
Concerned about Putin using “the most heinous weapons in the world”.
Meanwhile, Moscow has indicated its willingness to use nuclear weapons in the conflict. In an interview Tuesday with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to deny that Moscow might resort to nuclear weapons.
When asked under what conditions Putin would use Russia’s nuclear capacity, Peskov replied: “If it’s an existential threat to our country, then it can be.”
McMaster urged the world to take Putin’s nuclear threats seriously because nobody knows what’s on the mind of the Russian leader.
“We have to worry that he’s using some of the most heinous weapons in the world,” McMaster said, adding that that includes chemical weapons. “But we have to make it clear to him that if he does it, he will face enormous consequences.”
McMaster said Putin “doesn’t look good” and needs to figure out how to deal with an apparent defeat in Ukraine.
“He’s trying to appear strong with this rally,” McMaster said, referring to a rally Putin appeared at last week to celebrate Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “But he seems extremely weak and fragile.”