“We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine,” the president said in an interview with NBC’s San Diego affiliate, KNSD, one of several he did Wednesday. “What we are going to do is mobilize all of our diplomatic resources to make sure that we’ve got a strong international coalition that sends a clear message, which is that Ukraine should decide their destiny.” … Obama said that he sees Russian President Vladimir Putin acting “out of weakness, not out of strength” in attempting to take control of Crimea. Putin, the president said, is “not comfortable” with former members of the Soviet Union making moves to align themselves with the West. In another interview, with St. Louis NBC affiliate KSDK, Obama also said that a military option is not on the table. “Obviously, you know, we do not need to trigger an actual war with Russia,” he said. “The Ukrainians don’t want that. Nobody would want that.”
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 20:22:18 +0000