Russia will attack NATO if Ukraine falls, Mike Pence warns
Global News
A Russian victory over Ukraine would embolden other authoritarian regimes, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said. He said China is waiting to see the West "falter."
Former United States vice president Mike Pence says that he believes Russia will attack NATO if it overpowers Ukraine, emboldening other authoritarian regimes like China.
He called on Republican and Democrat lawmakers to fund Ukraine’s defence as well as that of Israel and Taiwan.
“If Vladimir Putin were able to overrun Ukraine… I think it would not be very long before we cross the border that our men and women would have to go and fight under Article Five,” he said, referencing the NATO founding principle that alliance members will defend each other if one is attacked.
The former vice president said if Russia were to overrun Ukraine, “it would not be long before we saw action in the Taiwan Straits or somewhere in the South China Sea,” because Chinese President Xi Jinping is watching to “see if the West falters.”
“We’re living in a time of widening threats but I believe the gathering storm we face is even greater, the potential for threats to the free world are even greater,” he said in Belgium on Thursday to a forum for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Washington-based think tank.
“There’s no substitute for American leadership.”
He called on American lawmakers to support a proposal from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to send billions of dollars to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Republicans control the House of Representatives and several have spoken out against supporting Ukraine further. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hardline Republican, filed a motion to force Johnson to vacate the speaker position over the matter.
