Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is "playing with fire" when it comes to blaming Russia for a missile strike that killed two people in Poland earlier this week, but cooler heads must prevail, former U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands Pete Hoekstra told Newsmax Thursday.
"You need cooler heads to prevail always on this intelligence stuff," Hoekstra, appearing on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now" with economist John Jordan, a board member board at the Hoover Institution, commented. "Let's gather the information before we go out and make some rash statements."
Shortly after the missile strike hit across the Polish border on Tuesday, Zelenskyy quickly blamed Russia, and doubled down on that stance on Wednesday, but now is saying he didn't have all the information, Bachman noted.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, in Bali for the G-20 summit, quickly called a meeting with Poland and NATO allies, with information being released that the missile was Ukrainian, not Russian.
Hoekstra told Newsmax that now is not the time for Ukraine to have a rift with the United States, as new Republican leadership is coming in January that "may put the contributions to Ukraine under a microscope."
The ambassador also commended Biden for his action to slow the potential conflict down. "He's got all this experience in the Senate and as vice president," said Hoekstra. "I had it when I was chairman of the Intelligence Committee. The first readout of intelligence, you can count the multiple times where two days later, a week later, you find out that the initial intelligence was totally wrong."
Jordan commented that Zelenskyy's quick reaction was a "rare media mixup," as he "jumped the shark."
"He got out in front of the facts on this," said Jordan. "He assumed it was a Russian missile. It wasn't. It was an errant Ukrainian SAM [surface-to-air-missile]."
"Ukraine fatigue is a real thing," Jordan said. "Will the allies — will the West — continue to supply them throughout the winter time? Because without that, that's what's the only thing is keeping Ukraine in the fight and the only reason they're winning. So he wanted to drag maybe wanted another, a fresh Russian atrocity and perhaps one that was inflicted on a NATO country to bring the West further into Ukraine's corner, and he got in front of the facts, and he got burned by it."
If the U.S. government stops supplying aid to Ukraine, that will put it into a difficult position, said Hoekstra.
"What we'll do is we'll push him toward the negotiating table where he's maybe not ready to go," Hoekstra said. "If we pull back, our allies in Europe will pull back even faster because they want this to end. They're facing energy shortages and significant inflation."
However, with winter here, it's an advantage for Ukraine, as it's better equipped than Russia to fight in the cold, said Jordan.
"It's going to be even harder for the Russians to resupply," he said. "The Ukrainians now are more capable of executing mechanized warfare so they are going to want to keep the pressure on the Russians and hope for a collapse in one or more Russian sectors which could happen pretty much at any time."
Jordan also noted that Russian morale is at an all-time low, as Moscow is not able to supply its fighters with the gear it needs to fight.
"These soldiers are untrained, dragged off the street or out of mental institutions, or out of prisons," said Jordan. "They're taking casualties at enormous rates, far higher than trained troops would. Untrained troops are always going to take casualties at a higher rate."
And now, with winter and facing a determined foe with the Ukrainians, "a Russian collapse in one or more sectors is a real possibility as we go into the winter months," said Jordan. "That could completely change the dynamics of this war and the political situation in Moscow."
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.