Congressman Kustoff shares thoughts on Ukraine crisis

JACKSON, Tenn. — As tension continues to escalate between Russia and Ukraine, leaders and people around the world are tuning in to see what’s next.

With the fear of what’s next, Congressman David Kustoff shared his thoughts about the situation.

Kustoff says leaders around the world saw the American withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan as a sign of weakness, and this in turn led Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch an invasion into Ukraine.

“Putin, who has for a long time had designs on trying to take back Ukraine or trying to take Ukraine into the Russian fold, looked at what happened in Afghanistan several months ago and thought that the US will not stand up to him and not stand up for Ukraine,” Kustoff said.

He says the Biden administration should have taken action before the situation arose.

He says Joe Biden’s next move will decide whether this ends peacefully or with force, but either way that decision is going to impact the lives of everyone around the world, including the residents of West Tennessee.

“What the Biden administration should have done before Putin made the move on Ukraine is impose sanctions. Sanctions to get Putin’s attention to let him know that if in fact he did invade Ukraine, there will be more serious and severe sanctions that will come afterwards,” Kustoff said.

Kustoff says a sanction on SWIFT — a network used by banks to send secure messages about transfers of money and other transactions — would cripple Russia’s economy, resulting in Putin not being able to fund the nation’s military.

He says it’s not too late for the Biden administration to impose this sanction, hopefully putting an end to Putin’s ambitions.

“We need to hit Russia and President Putin harder to show that the United States, the other European nations, the NATO nations won’t stand for the invasion,” Kustoff said. “So my point is if those sanctions that president impose have an effect, we should see a pull back from Russian forces.”

When asked if there is a looming threat of another world war, Kustoff says only if the US allows it.

He says whether or not we end this peacefully depends on Putin.

“The decisions that President Putin makes over the next several days and the next several weeks are going to be very determined on what the world order looks like in the next few months,” Kustoff said.

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