Meanwhile, we are in our “fireproof house”.
When I was at NORAD, I thought one of the most important things I wrote for the commander was after the 2014 invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk. Throughout his career, President Putin has accelerated and escalated, starting, frankly, with the war in Chechnya, the war against Georgia, his invasion of Crimea and his seizure of Donetsk. Inevitably, in his own mind and as he has made clear in statements, he intends to go to war in a full-on conventional conflict with NATO.
If Ukraine is not successful in its defence, and if we foolishly permit some kind of ceasefire that allows Russia to hold on to what it has taken, he will continue his preparation. He has not remanaged the entire Russian economy on a wartime footing solely to conquer Ukraine. His intention is to beat us.