Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, third from left, across table from U.S. Sens. Robert Portman, Chris Murphy, Jeanne Shaheen, Amy Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal and Roger Wicker.
As the world watches whether Russia will invade Ukraine, Connecticut’s two U.S. senators traveled to the heart of the potential conflict to deliver a bipartisan message.
The senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, returned to D.C. Wednesday from a trip to Kyiv, where they and five colleagues met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At a time when Democrats and Republicans are fighting about pretty much everything else in the U.S., the senators relayed that the parties are united in a pledge to support Ukraine against a feared invasion.
“U.S. troops are off the table,” Blumenthal said Wednesday during an interview on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. But the U.S. is ready with both military aid for Ukrainians looking to fight back against Russian troops on their soil, and plans to hit Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s government hard with economic sanctions.
Blumenthal said he’d like to see those sanctions take effect before Putin makes the call whether or not to send the 100,000 troops currently on the border into Ukraine.
“Wars often result from miscalculation,” he observed. “The danger of miscalculation is that Putin misunderstands our resolve.”
During the visit, the president as well other top aides impressed the senators with their commitment to resist a Russian invasion, Blumenthal reported.
Blumenthal spoke of American interests in preventing Putin from continuing to attack democracy not just in Ukraine, but beyond, including in Western nations. He also spoke of supporting the Ukrainian-American community in Connecticut.
Murphy spoke of that community as well during a Wednesday Zoom session with reporters about the trip; he noted that Wethersfield, where he grew up, has one of the state’s largest Ukrainian-American communities.
Murphy was asked about reports that Moscow has warned of placing missiles in Cuba in the event of U.S. support for Ukrainian resistance to an invasion; and about fears of Moscow launching crippling hack attacks on U.S. infrastructure or other computer networks.
“I don’t think that we can over-hype the damage to the United States done by an invasion of the totality of Ukraine,” Murphy said. “The post-World War II order is dependent on big countries staying in their box and not overrunning smaller neighboring countries because they’re a bigger military power … If Putin moves into Ukraine without any significant consequences because the U.S. is scared of an escalation with Russia, a NATO country may be next. If Putin invades a NATO country, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops may be sent to Europe.”
Murphy characterized Russia’s previous takeover of Crimea and its current mobilization as “the most serious assault on the post-World War II order in our lifetime.”
He added that Putin is acting out of weakness in threatening Ukraine, because of that nation’s decision to seek a more democratic path outside Russia’s orbit.
Does the jockeying over Ukraine portend a renewed Cold War between the U.S. and Russia?
“It’s not a new Cold War. You know the old say: History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes. What we’re seeing in a way is a rhyme of big powers confronting each other in competition, trying to work out ways they can compete peacefully, economically,” Blumenthal responded.
“We’ve learned from the Cold War that existential threats — that is nuclear threats — really could be avoided at any possible cost because they tend to escalate very quickly. I would not expect the Cold War to repeat or rhyme int he sense that we are at each other’s throats. At least I hope so. I hope we can find a way to resolve our differences on Ukraine and Putin will be deterred from a rash and reckless invasion.”
Click on the play arrow to watch the full interview with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”