Dem Sen. Warner: Russian Military 'Clearly' Not What It Was Built Up to Be

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said Wednesday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that the Russian military is “not what it was built up to be” because they are not taking control of the Ukrainian air command systems during the invasion of Ukraine.

Blitzer said, “You and most of your colleagues, I’m sure, think Putin is a war criminal for what he’s done in the past few weeks in Ukraine. I know you’ve done a briefing. House chairman Adam Schiff came out and dismissed rumors there’s any serious movement on a potential diplomatic move between Ukraine and Russia. What is your understanding?”

Warner said, “On that diplomatic deal, I didn’t get a chance to fully press that. I saw the report. I think this war is going to go on. I would pray for a diplomatic solution, but in many ways, that would be left up to the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian people. Clearly, at every turn, the Russian military is not what it was built up to be. Their execution, frankly, in terms of not even taking out the Ukrainian air command systems, the fact that over half of the Ukrainian air force and more is still up and operating is, frankly, malpractice on the part of the Russian military planners.”

He added, “I do think it’s important we continue to send them additional assistance into literally tens of thousands of antitank tools, tremendous increase in the number of Stingers, and I applaud the administration while not getting into the actual systems, but applaud them saying we will get longer range anti-aircraft tools to Ukrainians where they could gain some control over their skies if they have those longer-range anti-aircraft tools. So I think the Ukrainians are doing quite well, but we need to continue to rush arms and equipment and not just us, but our European allies and others as well.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN