U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) on Wednesday joined Fox Business Network’s “Fox Business Tonight” to provide insight into the United States’ response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Tuberville, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, touted the leadership of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and called for increased arms support for the embattled nation.
“[Zelensky is] a leader. He’s fighting a war, and we’re playing politics. … And it’s just a shame that we’re not helping him as much as we can,” said Tuberville. “We promised him we’d help him. There’s no difference between a missile and an airplane. We’ve got planes they can use.”
“He cannot survive unless he has air support,” added the senator. “That’s not going to happen, and there’s going to be hundreds and hundreds more people killed if we don’t give them the opportunity to have the air support. … Hopefully, President Biden starts to understand that there’s a war going on, and we need to help them as much as we can.”
Alabama’s junior senator stated his opposition to the possibility of NATO establishing a no-fly zone over Ukrainian skies, warning that such action could draw United States armed forces into the conflict.
Tuberville went on to suggest that arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia prior to the invasion could have deterred President Vladimir Putin from invading.
“Every time [Russia] put people on the border, soldiers on the border, we should have put more missiles, Javelins [and] Stinger missiles, in Ukraine and prepared them for this,” advised Tuberville. “And then Putin would have seen this, and said, ‘You know, I might not want to do this.’ It’s just unfortunate. We waited too long, we waited way too long, to help these people. We’re playing behind the eight ball.”
Tuberville added that the fallout from President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal invited Putin’s adventurism and warned that China was “taking notes.”
“[China is] taking notes every day. This has all started with Afghanistan – the debacle we had there,” he declared. “I don’t think Putin would have ever done this if he had not seen a weak President like we’ve got now in terms of military. Xi Jinping is looking at this. He understands. They’ve got a plan. They’re going to Taiwan – it’s just whether it’s going to be next week, or next year, or three years from now.”
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
