Source: United States Senator for Delaware Christopher Coons
WILMINGTON, Del. – This morning, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), Chairman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hosted a press call after returning from congressional travel to Germany, Poland, and Lithuania. He discussed the trip and took questions about the ongoing situation in Ukraine.
Excerpts from Senator Coons’ remarks are below:
“I have just returned late yesterday from a weeklong trip to Europe. I was part of a large bipartisan delegation to the Munich Security Conference and then travelled onward to Poland and Lithuania with my colleagues Senators Shaheen and Durbin. In Germany I had the opportunity to meet with literally dozens of leaders of our partners and allies both in NATO, Europe and around the world, and in Poland and in Lithuania the opportunity to meet with the national leadership, the president, defense minister, leader of the Senate, prime minister, foreign minister, a variety of key leaders in both countries, but also a chance to go to bases, an airbase in Poland and a training facility in Lithuania, and to see American soldiers and pilots training alongside our NATO partners in Poland, Lithuania, Germany and many others.
“The overall message I bring back from these trips and meetings is first that NATO is stronger than it has ever been, that President Biden and his team have done an outstanding job of mobilizing the West to be prepared for this moment of aggression by Vladimir Putin. That the outrage you are hearing from our partners and allies and their determination to impose swift and strong sanctions to make Russia and in particular Putin and the circle of oligarchs who support him, pay the price for the loss of life that we are seeing unfold today in Kyiv and across Ukraine, is the result of determination of focus.
“President Biden spoke with our bipartisan delegation as we were meeting with Vice President Harris, and I felt both Secretary Blinken and Vice President Harris gave powerful and important remarks at the Munich Security Conference. I had the chance to meet with too long a list of people to cover, but principle among them the foreign minister of Germany, the opposition leader from Belarus Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the UN Secretary General, the President of Ukraine and the Mayor of Kyiv, the NATO Secretary General, and many, many others
“At the end of the day, Putin is showing his true colors. I was asked last week by a reporter, are you concerned that America will be accused of crying wolf, because even a few days ago it seemed hard for many to believe that Putin would carry out the attack he is now executing across Ukraine.
“And my comment in response was that you’re not crying wolf if he’s actually a wolf. Putin is a thug and a murderer, a force for evil in Europe who will only stop when we stop him.
“And one of the things I think President Biden has done forcefully and repeatedly is to clarify that we will defend every inch of NATO territory. It may be hard to imagine, but I think that we are in a moment similar to 1939, where the initial taking of Crimea and the Donbas, parts of Oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk and the lack of the immediate forceful response from the West to Putin’s interference in our 2016 election, gave him the mistaken impression that perhaps we were divided.
“When President Biden became President, he invested months in visiting Europe, in connecting with our NATO allies, our British and Canadian partners, and then in going to meet with Putin in person in Geneva, and convey to him that he knows who he is and he knows his intentions.
“My concern is that Putin’s aggression will not stop with Ukraine. That there are other former Soviet Republics that he will consider next, whether Moldova, Armenia or Georgia. One of the things that I think isn’t being covered enough, is that despite the bravery and determination of thousands of Belarusians who protested Lukashenko’s fake reelection and the thousands of political prisoners who are in Belarusian jails right now, that Putin has carried out a sort of soft overthrow of the Lukashenko government by deploying 30,000 Russian troops into Belarus.
“His objective, repeatedly stated, is to reassemble as much of the Soviet Union as he can. His chilling remarks a few days ago, that Ukraine is not a legitimate country that he doesn’t believe it has a right to independence, is a reminder of just how disruptive a force Putin is and will remain in world affairs.”
Audio recording of the call and Senator Coons’ full remarks are available here