U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker spoke to Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on Friday morning and suggested that the “Russian threat sometimes is a little overstated.” Whitaker’s comments had the unfortunate timing of coming just hours before three Russian fighter jets infiltrated the airspace of Estonia, a NATO member.

“Russia has already violated Estonia’s airspace four times this year, which in itself is unacceptable. But today’s incursion, involving three fighter aircraft entering our airspace, is unprecedentedly brazen,” Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told Reuters.

Russian drones recently breached Poland’s airspace, resulting in several being shot down by Polish forces – the first time in NATO’s history that a member state fired shots to protect its own territory from a hostile foreign power.

“You know, I think it points out that we need to continue to work on air defense that is multi-layered, that is inexpensive compared to the threats, because obviously shooting down drones that are duds, to your point, with multi-million dollar missiles is inefficient and ineffective,” Whitaker said about the Polish incident, adding:

So we’re going to continue work on those issues as well. But you know, Poland is right there staring at the Russians, seeing what they’re doing in Ukraine.

But, you know, I think the Russian threat sometimes is a little overstated. They have not had a lot of success. And to your point, Ukraine has actually taken back territory. And so, you know, to me, that points to a weakness in Russia. As their economy continues to falter, I believe their continuation of this war is going to be difficult.

But President Trump is going to continue to find the leverage and to find conditions where he can bring both sides and mediate a resolution. Because again, he’s not going to set the conditions. Both sides are going to have to agree to a peace deal, but let’s continue to work on this and continue to hope and pray that this resolves in the near future so that the deaths will end.

Watch the clip above via Fox Business.

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