UTAH (ABC4) – Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) gave his thoughts on the Ukraine crisis during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning.
The senator from Utah once stated in 2012 that Russia is, without question, our “number one geopolitical foe,” adding that they fight every cause for the “world’s worst actors.”
Fast forward to today, and his concerns are being proven right.
Romney began his interview with host Dana Bash by noting, “the extraordinary courage of the Ukrainian people.” He says that they have “galvanized the spirit of the entire world,” and cites Ukraine’s leadership as a source of fortitude amid a terrible crisis.
But Romney makes clear that this crisis isn’t just about Putin’s tyranny, but a battle of good and evil.
The senator says he is hopeful that Putin will wise up to the stupidity of what he’s doing, adding that, “In this modern world with war being conducted and people filming it and passing it around the world, there’s been a response that I don’t think Putin had anticipated.”
Romney goes on to say that NATO has come together, and that Germany will be investing far more in their military capacity. He states, “The world is behind the people of Ukraine.”
When asked about sanctions, he says, “We can only go as fast as everybody wants to move together,” but that aside from the impact of sanctions, “We and our allies are going to be going after the oligarchs, going after their mansions, after their yachts.”
He says that this is the “kind of thing we ought to be doing.”
“Look, this is one of the greatest demonstrations of good versus evil that we’ve seen during our lifetimes,” Sen. Romney states.
The senator had this to say on the Biden Administration:
“The Biden Administration has done some things very well and some things not so well. The not-so-well side is they continued the policy of prior administrations not to provide the defensive weapons that Ukraine needed. That was a mistake. The positive thing was sharing our intelligence with our allies and combining our efforts with our allies. Look, we used to be 40% of the world economy. Today we’re about half of that. For us to have the economic clout we used to have back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, we really do need to combine with our allies. That’s something President Biden has done extraordinarily well.”
Romney makes the point that Putin feels emboldened in his attack as the Russian president has already invaded Georgia, invaded Ukraine by going into Crimea, and has interfered in our elections and attacked our cyber systems.
He calls our response to these things “tepid,” and that as of now, we have an agreement to protect Ukraine under Article 5 in the NATO articles, where, “an attack on one is an attack on all.”
Romney says we have a responsibility to respond with full force.
The senator has recently been touted as the lone Republican to convict President Trump in his first impeachment trial, citing that he, “delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders,” speaking of Ukraine.
Romney is particularly direct about his disdain for Putin:
“How anybody in this country, which loves freedom, can side with Vladimir Putin, which is an oppressor, a dictator. He kills people. He imprisons his political opponents. He’s been an adversary of America at every chance he’s had. It’s unthinkable to me. It’s almost treasonous. And it just makes me ill to see some of these people do that. But of course they do it because it’s shock value and it’s going to get them maybe more eyeballs and make a little more money for them and their network. It’s disgusting. I’m hopeful you’re seeing some of those people recognize just how wrong they were.”
The Utah senator says it clearly that standing up for freedom is the right thing to do in America, and that anything less than that is unworthy of American support.
