Sanctions against Russia ‘need to hurt,’ NC’s Sen. Thom Tillis says
As explosions rattled Ukraine early Thursday morning, Sen. Thom Tillis called on the Biden administration to quickly and significantly ramp up sanctions against Russia that “need to hurt.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his troops attempted throughout Thursday to overtake Ukraine, home to 44.1 million residents. By Thursday evening, Russia took control of the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
“Putin’s regime must be held accountable for starting this unprovoked war against a free and sovereign democracy and spilling the blood of innocent people,” Tillis said in a written statement, moments after the attack began.
Tillis serves as co-chair of the Senate’s NATO Observer group, and his senior advisor, Daniel Keylin, said Tillis has had meetings behind the scenes with the committee, NATO partners and leaders of the Baltic states.
Russia and Ukraine share a border in eastern Europe and are the largest two countries, by area, on the continent. Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, is 7 hours ahead of North Carolina.
“Many will face unspeakable danger because of a corrupt and paranoid dictator who harbors grand ambitions of forming a new Soviet empire,” Tillis said in his statement. “America must stand in solidarity with Ukraine by providing financial support and military equipment.”
Sanctions against Russia
Tillis’ team spoke to McClatchy Thursday about some of the sanctions the Republican senator hoped Democratic President Joe Biden would issue against Russia Thursday. Less than two hours later, Biden issued several of those on Tillis’ wish list.
“Putin is the aggressor,” Biden said. “Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences.”
On Thursday, the United States cut off business with five of Russia’s largest financial institutions and froze any of the banks’ assets in the United States. The U.S. also froze the assets of some of Russia’s most powerful families. Biden also issued sanctions against Belarus and some of its power players for supporting Russia. The United States also cut off supplies that could help Russia’s military.
“Tillis has been calling for preemptive sanctions against Russia for weeks now,” Keylin said, adding that having had those in place could have made a difference.
Helping Ukraine
Keylin said Tillis is supportive of providing humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine.
“I can only imagine that their economy is pretty much going to be cut off from this point forward,” Keylin said. “They’re going to need help, whether it’s food or just simple economic assistance to help their government out and provide basic services to the citizens.”
From a military side, Keylin said the United States needs to help Ukraine by supplying them with arms and defense systems.
Further threats
Keylin said continuing to work with U.S. allies will be important.
Cybersecurity attacks, he said, are one threat that could extend beyond the borders of Ukraine and have yet to be seen during a war. He said attempts at cybersecurity attacks by Russia against Ukraine have likely already begun.
“In modern warfare — Russia is a peer competitor with the United States when it comes to the cyber-realm, and they are capable of causing a lot of economic damage to the United States and our allies,” Keylin said.
North Carolina’s delegation
Congress is in recess this week because of the President’s Day holiday but expected to return early next week with a focus on Russia.
While most of the delegation is back home, many took to social media and sent news releases expressing their opinions about Russia throughout the night Wednesday and Thursday.
Most sent their thoughts and prayers to Ukraine. Many called on harsher sanctions. Some took it as an opportunity to attack the president.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from Henderson County, said the U.S. military does not belong to the rest of the world and should not “lurch to war.”
He added that the United States has no leader.
Both he and Rep. Ted Budd, a Republican from Davie County, said that the attack on Ukraine would have never happened under former President Donald Trump, who is endorsing Budd’s candidacy for U.S. Senate.
“Some of the Biden administration’s first actions were crippling American pipelines and waiving President Trump’s sanctions on Russia’s pipelines,” Budd said. “Putin saw that, sensed weakness, and now Russia is invading Ukraine.”
Budd called the situation tragic.
“Projecting our strength both at home and abroad, as we did under President Trump, makes America and the rest of the world, a safer place,” Budd said.
Rep. Greg Murphy, a Greenville Republican, said preemptive sanctions would have forced adversaries to negotiate from a place of weakness.
“Now that we’re issuing sanctions after the fact, Biden hasn’t gone far enough,” Murphy said. “Why won’t this Administration sanction Putin immediately?”
Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from Denver, supported additional sanctions against Russia.
“That means coordinating our sanctions with our allies to ensure that Beijing doesn’t come to Putin’s rescue,” McHenry said. “America and our allies must finally hold Putin accountable for years of provocations and disregard for international law.”
Rep. David Price, a Democrat from Chapel Hill, has spent time in Ukraine and called for crippling sanctions that punish Putin and “his cronies.”
“Having visited Ukraine frequently, witnessed the democratic aspirations of its people directly, and worked closely with its parliament, I am appalled at this vicious attack,” Price said. “The courage and resolve of the Ukrainian people inspire the world, and the United States will stand by them in this time of great peril.”
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at https://campsite.bio/underthedome or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 6:03 PM.
