STATEMENT BY SENATORS JOHN MCCAIN AND LINDSEY GRAHAM ON NEED TO SUPPORT UKRAINE IN FACE OF RENEWED RUSSIAN AGGRESSION

File Photo of U.S. Capitol in Bright Sunlight

(mccain.senate.gov – Washington, D.C., November 18, 2014) U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following statement urging the Obama Administration and the European Union to provide the support Ukrainian leaders have long sought in the face of renewed Russian aggression:

John McCain file photo

“President Putin’s renewed aggression in Ukraine demands more than additional empty rhetoric and threats of lowest-common-denominator sanctions. That has been the extent of the world’s response to Putin’s slow-motion dismemberment of Ukraine, and it has consistently failed to deter new acts of aggression. Indeed, it has invited this aggression by creating a perception of U.S. and European disinterest and weakness. That is what is truly provocative to Putin.

Lindsey Graham file photo“The Obama Administration’s policy in Ukraine effectively amounts to an arms embargo on victims of aggression. This is contrary to both our national interests and our long-standing ideals of supporting free peoples in their struggle against subjugation. The United States and the European Union must provide Ukraine with the arms and related military and intelligence support that its leaders have consistently sought and desperately need.

“No one should see Ukraine’s cause as hopeless. Providing Ukrainians with the ability to defend themselves would impose a far greater cost on Putin than he has paid thus far. If U.S. and E.U. leaders continue to fail to understand that, Putin’s conquest of Ukraine will only grind on and may possibly spread to Moldova and the Baltics.”

 

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