Ambassador Kurt Volker on the building tensions surrounding Ukraine

WAMU 88.5 | By Rupert Allman

Published January 25, 2022 at 9:05 AM EST

Former State Department special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker exits following his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee during the impeachment hearings of President Donald Trump in Washington, DC.

If anyone needs a temperature check on whether the U.S. could enter another armed conflict, here’s Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby:

All told – the number of forces of forces that the secretary has placed on heightened alert comes up to about 8500 personnel again I want to reinforce that as of now the decision has been made to put these units on higher alert and higher alert only what the secretary has ordered them to do is to be ready to go in some cases on a much shorter tether than what they had before.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has blamed the U.S. for “building up tension” over Ukraine.

He told reporters, “We are observing these actions of the United States with profound concern.”

Ambassador Kurt Volker served as a U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine from 2017 to 2019 and as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009. He joins us to break the situation down.