During an appearance on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned the United States could not shoulder the burden of defending Ukraine on its own.
The Wyoming Republican called on NATO to be more engaged in the conflict.
“So, President Biden has said that Putin’s calculation was when this attack on Ukraine happened, it could potentially splinter different allies and NATO, but that NATO is stronger and more unified than it has been in a very long time,” host Shannon Bream said. “Do you give President Biden any credit for keeping that coalition together, for being the leadership voice?”
“Well, I think it’s important that NATO stay together and that we act in unity, and I think NATO has to be held accountable and do more,” Barrasso replied. “We cannot shoulder this burden alone, nor should we. There’s lots of support in Congress for Ukraine, and it’s for technology, it’s for weapons, it’s for information, it’s not for troops. The best thing we can do now is to step up. And I see the president doing that with the cluster bombs. I support those. This should have happened long ago. Russia has been using those for a long time.”
“It just does seem to me, Shannon, that there’s much delay in the activity of this administration in ultimately getting to Ukraine what they need, but it’s taking too long. You know, the president has this misguided fear that any time we send anything to them, it’s going to just add to escalation in ways that Putin will then attack more. The Economist magazine this week reported in the last year, the Russians and Putin fired 10 million — 10 million, I mean, just an astonishing number, of shells into Ukraine, and by so many delays we’ve had in this administration, I think it’s just prolonged the war and added to increased death.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor