“I firmly disagree with that proposition,” Blinken mentioned throughout a congressional listening to earlier than the Senate International Members of the family Committee, in responding to Paul’s statement that “you’ll want to argue” that the nations Russia has attacked have been a part of the Soviet Union. Paul perceived to point out Russia’s anger about Ukraine in all probability becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Group — particularly given it was once within the Soviet Union — can have induced the invasion.
The from side to side used to be brought on via Paul wondering why the USA were “agitating” for Ukraine to enroll in NATO remaining fall, which used to be one thing Russia ardently hostile as a “pink line.”
Blinken argued that it used to be vital to repeatedly shield NATO’s open door coverage.
“It is the proper of those nations to make a decision their long run and their very own future,” Blinken is going on to mention, pronouncing their historical past does now not give Russia the fitting to assault them.
“No person is pronouncing that it does,” Paul answered.
“They have been liberated as a part of this empire via drive,” Blinken mentioned.
Blinken additionally mentioned that the USA sought to interact Russia on lots of its issues about Ukraine earlier than it invaded Ukraine, however the ones efforts went nowhere as a result of Russia used to be now not truly .
“When the whole thing got here to a head, it’s abundantly transparent, in President Putin’s personal phrases, that this used to be by no means about Ukraine being probably a part of NATO, and it used to be at all times about his trust that Ukraine does now not need to be a sovereign, impartial nation, that it will have to be reassumed into Russia in a single shape or any other,” Blinken mentioned.
The GOP senator mentioned, “There’s no justification for the invasion,” however “there are causes for the invasion.”
“Russia has sought as its most important goal to completely subjugate Ukraine, to remove its sovereignty, to remove its independence — that has failed,” Blinken mentioned at a information convention in Poland close to the Ukrainian border following the assembly with Zelensky. “It has sought to say the ability of its army and its economic system. We, in fact, are seeing simply the other, an army this is dramatically underperforming and an economic system … because of sanctions this is in shambles.”
