Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) issued a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the growing tension with Ukraine.
According to Portman, “the United States unequivocally stands” with Ukraine. He advised that the Ukrainian people are “ready to defend themselves.”
“The United States unequivocally stands with a Ukraine that has turned to the West, turned toward democracy and freedom,” Portman declared. “They don’t want to go back to an authoritarian past. I think this is why President Putin feels such a threat. It’s not that Ukraine threatens Russia in any way except for the fact that they are a democracy that’s thriving. And so, we need to stand with them, as do our European allies, our NATO allies, and other freedom-loving countries all around the world. And we are seeing a strong stand against what might happen.”
He continued, “The question is can we convince the Russians that this would be a terrible mistake, which I believe it would be — both in terms of the bloody cost that they will entail in Ukraine because the Ukrainian people are ready to defend themselves but second with regard to devastating sanctions that the United States and other countries are ready to impose.”
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