The Situation Room: Interview With Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO)
Interview
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Well, Alex, it's certainly a mess for Putin, there's no doubt about that. But, you know, when you have a military or an armed force that's comprised of paid mercenaries, convicts that have been swiped out of prisons, people that have been literally kidnapped off the streets of Russia, impressed into military service, and you cobble that together and give people five days of military training and slap a uniform on them and give them a rifle, this is what you get, right?
Putin went into this war thinking he was going to dominate Ukraine. He vastly misunderstood the Ukrainian people and their pride and their love of country. He was wrong there. And now 60 percent of his military is destroyed. So he's in a really tough position right now, but it's a position of his own making.
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Well, not on the most recent developments, but I have been closely tracking the Wagner Group and its operations, not just in Ukraine, but around the world, particularly of interest is the impact of Wagner on Africa. They're very prevalent throughout Africa, including Western Africa and Central Africa, where they run mines, where they do a lot of for profit operations, and they've cozied up to a lot of the governments in that region.
So I'm going to keep a close eye on the impact of this now kind of burgeoning conflict between Putin, Putin loyalists and Prigozhin, and the impact that it might have worldwide on stability, particularly in Africa.
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I think Ukraine is doing really well. Listen, this is a long term battle. One thing that I learned in war, I did three combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. No single day is just positive. One day is just different from the next. The Ukrainians know what they need to do. They have incredible will to fight. We've given them the tools to do so. We have to give them the time to actually execute. There's going to be setbacks from time to time. There always are in wars like this. But I believe firmly in the power of the Ukrainian people, and we have to continue to stand by them.
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Thank you.
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