Ben Rhodes: ‘Highly, Highly Unlikely’ that Ukraine Takes Back Occupied Territories; They Need a ‘Credible Security Guarantee’

RUSH EXCERPT:

HODES: "That’s right. Because the main question here, right, Putin wants territory and he wants essentially, again, to control Ukraine’s future. So what the Ukrainians want because, look, I’m not someone who’s going to sit here and tell you that the Ukrainians are somehow going to reconquer all of this territory, that they’re not going to take back crimea, that that is highly, highly unlikely. We’ve learned that. And this war does need to at least stop a cease fire. Now, what Ukrainians need, though, is a credible security guarantee that if that happens, if this is a frozen conflict, if that front line kind of ceases, and maybe there’s not true peace where each side fully accepts the terms of the other. What the Ukrainians need to know is that that’s just not going to lead to Russia re-invading them in five years or 10 years, or trying to assassinate their leaders.”