With Europe on the brink of war after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow is recognizing the independence of areas in eastern Ukraine, Minnesota Senator Tina Smith is saying she is confident in President Joe Biden’s response to the situation.
In a fiery speech Monday, Putin said Ukraine was “created by Russia” and ordered “peacekeeping” troops into the eastern part of the country, a move that's seen as a pretext for possible further invasion. The West including the United States has announced sanctions, while U.N. Security Council members condemned the move as a violation of international law.
Smith, who talked to the WCCO Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar Wednesday, calls the actions by Russia “flagrant”.
“What's happening here is completely unprovoked aggression by Russia,” says the senator. “They're flagrantly violating international law. What the president has been doing is working very hard to unify our allies around the world against this aggression and to deter the Vladimir Putin in every way that we can from moving forward.”
President Joe Biden announced several financial sanctions aimed at hurting the Russian Government and President Vladimar Putin.
“I think that the president has done a great job of marshaling all of our resources to deter this, but Putin seemed just hell bent to go down this path,” Smith tells Vineeta Sawker. “What President Biden did yesterday was to put forth very strong sanctions, mostly all financial sanctions against the banks that fund the Russian government and the Russian military to make it much more difficult for Russia to raise dollars. Which they rely on to pay for their activities and also sanctions on their oligarchs, the elites that fund Putin personally.”
Smith adds that the moves the U.S. takes are not going to involve military conflict.
“The important thing is that the steps that the United States took were matched by our allies around the world so that we are again a united front. And I think it's also really important for Minnesotans to understand that the president has been clear that there will be no military conflict between the United States and Russia. There are no military forces in Ukraine. Ukraine isn't part of the NATO Alliance, which are the European allies that we have. I just think is really important for people to keep in mind at this point.”
Russia is a significant source of crude oil exports, especially in Europe. Oil prices surged nearly 5% and stock prices dropped Tuesday after Putin’s speech. Oil prices have risen to the highest level since 2014 prompting concerns in the global market.
Biden did acknowledge that this could drive up energy prices globally. “I will not pretend this will be painless,” he said.
“Most of the oil that Russian exports go into Europe,” Senator Smith says. “There certainly is a concern that the global demand and supply for oil will be disrupted because of Russia’s blatant aggression. And that is a concern. That is why the president is looking at other steps that we can take to beef up supply around the world and in the United States. We can kind of counteract that it won't affect us directly in the short term, but it certainly is something to be concerned about over the long term.”
There was some criticism of President Joe Biden’s announcement Wednesday of sanctions, mostly from those on the right who thought the response was “weak’. The House GOP Twitter account posted a photo of Biden after his speech with the caption that said, “This is what weakness on the world stage looks like”. Former President Donald Trump also chimed in, saying Putin’s moves on Ukraine were “smart and savvy”.
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Smith says she takes issue with those statements.
“Well, with regard to this question of the president not going far enough, I just disagree with that. This is a strong response. It is matched and has unified our allies around the world. It has gotten bipartisan support here at home. Some may say that we should go further, but the president has been clear that if Russia escalates further, then we will escalate further and we have more financial sanctions, more financial actions, that we can take against the Russian government that Russia knows about.”
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