Mark Warner on Putin, Ukraine: ‘What happens next? We’re in uncharted territory’

Russian dictator Vladmir Putin has backed himself into a corner in Ukraine. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, asked Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” how the U.S. should deal with a cornered Putin, offered a quick one-word response: “Carefully.”

“What happens next? We’re in uncharted territory,” said Warner, observing that the next few weeks, with winter on the horizon in Ukraine, will be “wild.”

“Once you get to mid-November, at least for the next few months, because of the winter, it will, troops will freeze in place, in a sense, and then we’ll see also some of the ramifications of, will the Europeans stay strong when their energy costs go through the roof this winter? One of the reasons why, frankly, it would be good national policy as well as economic policy, we ought to continue to make sure that American oil and gas are in this mixture – and why we need to go ahead and revisit permitting reforms, so that particularly in terms of American natural gas, we can supply that supply, rather than counting on friends, or not-so-good of friends in the Middle East,” Warner said.

Warner was then asked what the U.S. needs to do in terms of its ongoing efforts to help arm the Ukrainian army.

The answer, again, is to be careful.

“I think we should send more anti-missile defense weapons, but I do think that we’ve got to walk this careful line where you don’t give carte blanche to the Ukrainians to have additional strikes into Russia itself. And at the same time, you’ve got to not get so ahead of the Europeans that they all of a sudden say, OK, America, you put up $65 billion, we’re going to make you carry the whole burden,” Warner said.

A related hair to split has to do with Saudi Arabia, which in line with the rest of OPEC has decided to cut oil production, which will help increase prices in a way that will benefit Russia, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez thinks will help Russia finance its Ukraine operations.

“Listen, I’m as angry at Saudi Arabia and their irresponsibility as anyone, but I think even as you guys said on this show yesterday, you know, the truth is, certain areas, obviously, we have huge conflicts with Saudi Arabia, but in other areas, as a counterbalance to Iran, in terms of being an ally over many decades,” Warner said. “We’ve got to sort this through in a way that puts pressure on the Saudis, but does not drive them more into the Russia camp. One of the things I think would be, you know – and I don’t think this would mean backing off from our climate change goals – but if we can replace some of those fuel sources coming out of the Middle East with American fuel sources, particularly as we transition to cleaner energy generation, I think that’s good national security, that’s good economic security, and it would be a tangible pushback against the Saudis.”