EU Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis on the West’s response to Putin’s ‘very dark legacy’

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• Judy Woodruff:

  President Biden also spoke today with the European Council, the heads of state and government of the European Union.

  And to discuss that meeting, I spoke a short time ago to Stavros Lambrinidis, the E.U.'s ambassador to Washington.

  And I started by asking him about the G7 statement that warned Putin against using chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, and what the response would and should be if he did.

  Stavros Lambrinidis, European Union Ambassador to the United States: Well, it goes without saying that, if it did, this would be an escalation unimaginable on the one hand, but certainly crossing a number of lines that people thought uncrossable.

  So, it is a NATO decision, obviously. But I think the G7, the NATO secretary-general, everyone has made it clear that, if Putin does something that crazy, the consequences are probably going to be quite, quite dramatic for him.

• Nick Schifrin:

  One of the main topics today in the discussion between President Biden and European leaders is, of course, energy security, and Europe's historic reliance on Russian energies, oil and gas.

  Some European countries get 70 to 80 percent of their energy from Russia. This week, Germany said it opposed banning all Russian oil imports. Is there a short-term solution that you believe that would allow Europe to reduce its reliance on Russian energies?

• Stavros Lambrinidis:

  Yes, and it is already under way.

  We are getting, diverting gas supplies and energy supplies from many, many countries around the world who are instead bringing them to Europe. We have increased our purchase directly from suppliers as well.

  January, February, March have seen the highest number of imports of LNG. And, in fact, diversifying our supply is going to be a major emphasis of ours. And I do expect that, also, with the United States in particular, with President Biden now in Brussels, there will be additional announcements on E.U.-U.S. cooperation in particular.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Let's talk about sanctions evasion.

  The European statement this evening said that the U.S. and the E.U. were working jointly to blunt Russia's ability to deploy remaining international reserves, including gold.

  Have we seen Russia evade European and American sanctions so far?

• Stavros Lambrinidis:

  It has not been able to up to now. It's certainly trying.

  But when it comes to cryptocurrency, for example, which is actually quite transparent, once are you able to identify, which is the tough part initially, the transaction, to see where it came from, what happened, the markets are already aware that we are setting up a major task force to stop that, when it comes to gold reserves, same thing.

  So Russia is going to try to wiggle out, but it won't be able to. And at the end of the day, its economy is crashing as we speak. And I think this is going to be the very sad, the very dark legacy of Mr. Putin on his own country and his own people. The ruble has crashed; 50 percent of its value has disappeared compared to the euro.

  The stock markets are still not open. Inflation is skyrocketing in Russia, and people are losing money from their pockets, from their salaries. The oligarchs are running to hide. And I think it's quite interesting there.

  That very strange speech that Mr. Putin gave a few days ago, talking about these rich Russian people that have to be self-cleansed from Russia, you know, reminding quite a bit Stalin's language, well, I mean, I'm guessing that maybe some of these oligarchs are actually whispering to him in some ways that what he is doing is really detrimental to their interests, certainly, and probably to Russia's as well.

  The sanctions are biting already.

• Nick Schifrin:

  But we have seen no evidence yet that there is any kind of internal lack of cohesion between Putin and his lieutenants, right?

• Stavros Lambrinidis:

  Well, I think that speech is an indication of that, that we haven't seen the minister of defense and other people for awhile.

  You know, honestly, I don't particularly care to speculate what is happening in Russia. We are certainly very concerned by the fact that he is clamping down in a very open now way — he always has — against free media, against civil society, against anyone who disagrees with him. I mean, he is trying to feed everyone his propaganda.

  And, certainly, that is succeeding to some extent. But what we are hearing is that, through social media, that still exists, there is a large number of influential people in Russia who understand that this is a bloody war, that it is killing millions — well, it's sending out of the country millions of Ukrainians. It's killing thousands of a brother nation.

  And that is most certainly going to be taking its toll on Mr. Putin at some point.

• Nick Schifrin:

  President Biden today talked about a mechanism to know whether China was going to be helping Russia. Obviously, that mechanism will be coordinated with the Europeans.

  So, has China helped Russia avoid sanctions at all? And what would be the consequences, do you think, if China helped Russia avoid sanctions or in fact threw a lifeline to Putin overall?

• Stavros Lambrinidis:

  I think both President Biden and our presidents in — on the 1st of April will be communicating the exact same message to China: Do not, do not help Russia circumvent these sanctions. And do not help Russia with military material.

  We in Europe have been hit ourselves by these sanctions. They have consequences on us too. And we will not be sitting back and looking at anyone else trying to help Russia circumvent them.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis, thank you very much.

• Stavros Lambrinidis:

  Thank you.