STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Latvia's foreign minister, Baiba Braze, is on the line. She was at the NATO summit. Her country is a NATO member and especially vulnerable since it is on the border of Russia. Welcome to the program.
BAIBA BRAZE: Good morning, Washington. It's afternoon here in Riga.
INSKEEP: Wonderful, wonderful. What did you think about when you heard the president say that NATO is not a rip-off after all?
BRAZE: Well, NATO is not a rip-off. It's a collective defense alliance. And President Trump knows it very well, just like all the other presidents of the U.S. and all the other administrations. You know, it's 32 allies standing for each other, and that's what it is. And there is no alliance other like that.
INSKEEP: And of course, your country is in a position where you need to take this even more seriously, perhaps, than others do. Do you think that this commitment to raise defense spending to 5%, including infrastructure spending, is serious, is real, is going to happen and is sufficient to confront Russia if necessary?
BRAZE: Listen, I will fact-check you saying that we are more vulnerable than others. I think all countries are subject to Russian sub-conventional attacks already now. And that means cyber. That means sabotage. That means killings of certain people. Remember Skripal attack in U.K., which also had a use of chemical weapon? There are variety of activities that Russia is doing. So we have to be very sure that we know that we have that intelligence cooperation between military and civilian intelligence, and that we have that situational awareness about what Russia is doing in all respects, not only militarily - meaning where it's moving its troops, how it's attacking Ukraine. What is Ukraine doing? Where is Russia's vulnerabilities? But also about the internal security - we have to be very, very sure what is happening. And that's what we all are doing within the alliance. We are sharing intelligence. We have turned NATO into military defense again, collective defense organization, back from alliance of choice.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
BRAZE: Remember? We could send a few hundred troops here or there, or maybe not, to Afghanistan or elsewhere. But now, it's a collective defense organization. And that's why the funding was such a big issue because we have.
INSKEEP: You're refocused on Russia. I'd like to ask about that threat. How have you viewed President Trump's efforts across this year to - I mean, it almost seems like there's been several phases. He's tried to make an accommodation with Russia. He yelled at Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. He then seems to have repaired relations with Zelenskyy. He seems to be getting more frustrated with Russia. Hard to say where things stand now. How have you viewed all of this?
BRAZE: Listen, we fully, fully support President Trump's efforts to reach just and lasting peace in Ukraine. Ukraine wants that peace most of all. We all want it. Russia's aggression was totally without any justification. It was without any reason, so it has to stop. But there is a catch. Currently, we are not seeing any indications that the butcher in Kremlin really wants to stop anything. So to get to peace, we will have to push Russia to peace.
INSKEEP: Well, that's an interesting thing. I suppose it's possible that, from your perspective, it could be good that President Trump reached out to Russia because you discover whether that's possible or not. And maybe it's not possible.
BRAZE: But of course. But in the same time, we clearly know that they're - you know, we watch - all of us, all allies, watch Russia closely, and we follow the indications. And neither on the military side nor on political, economic side, religion, you know, private sector, there is not a single indicator that it's turning into pro-peace type of system. It's all pro-war currently.
So that's why there are three lines of effort that we discussed at the summit, where we have to be strong as allies, and that's nationally and collectively as NATO. Second is weakening Russia, so going after Russia's oil income, gas income, other exports, technology not being provided to Russia. There, China is the main enabler, as we all know. And third is to keep supporting Ukrainian self-defense. Ukrainians are heroic people, and Russia has not succeeded. Just think - it's more than three years of war. More than a million Russian soldiers killed or severely wounded.
INSKEEP: Right.
BRAZE: And they have not even progressed to the Dnipro River.
INSKEEP: In a sentence or two, do you think that your side right now, taking everything into account, is winning?
BRAZE: Oh, yeah, totally. Absolutely. Listen, it's a 40 million country that is resisting open aggression against 140 million nuclear state. And that nuclear state has not reached any of its strategic objectives. Ukraine is standing strong as a democracy. It's the largest army in Europe currently. It has all the technological advancements that it has integrated. I mean, look at the drone attacks that they implemented.
INSKEEP: Right.
BRAZE: It's really unseen before.
INSKEEP: Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much.
BRAZE: Thank you for your interest. Bye.
INSKEEP: Bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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