Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer said that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has his “own war logic” and believes he is winning the war he launched against Ukraine.
Nehammer was the first Western leader to have a face-to-face with Putin since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The Austrian leader said he confronted Putin about Russian atrocities committed in Ukraine after visiting the country himself and seeing the evidence of “war crimes” first-hand.
“It was not a friendly conversation; it was a frank and tough conversation. And I told him what I saw. I saw the war crimes. I saw the massive loss of the Russian army,” Nehammer told NBC in an interview aired on Sunday.
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“I think he is now in his own war logic. He thinks the war is necessary for security guarantees for the Russian Federation. He doesn’t trust the international community. He blames the Ukrainians for genocide in the Donbas region. So, well, he is now in his world, but I think he knows what is going on now in Ukraine,” Nehammer said.
“I think this is necessary. You know, at the end of our talks, he told me in German it’s better the war ends earlier than later. So I think he knows exactly what’s going on now. And we have to confront him. In other words, we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine,” he added.
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