CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Just back from his second trip to Eastern Europe, U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Clarksville said the Ukrainians are now “empowered” and likely won’t stop fighting until they have won back Crimea.
“They believe they can get every Russian out of Ukraine,” Green said Tuesday. “They’re going to fight until every Russian is even out of Crimea.”
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In the interview on the Clarksville’s Conversation podcast, Green predicted it will be a long fight, but the Ukrainians are up for it. He cited their large population and that all adult males have been conscripted. “Every Ukrainian male is expected fight in this war,” he said.
“They think now with the success they’ve had stopping the maneuver of Russia, they can do it – if we give them the right equipment,” he said, adding that several nations are now supplying Ukraine with tanks and missiles.
Green emphasized that Ukraine deserves America’s continued support.
“It’s a sovereign nation, and it’s a Western-style democracy. Now, it’s a young democracy and it has its issues, but they’ve made incredible strides,” he said, citing their recent peaceful transfer of power following democratic elections.
Bipartisan response to Russia
Green, an Army veteran of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, is on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Armed Forces Committee, and in that role he has stepped up to visit eastern Europe twice to get first-hand look at the situation.
He was the lead Republican on both bipartisan trips, invited on the second one by Rep. Steven Lynch, D-Massachusetts.
“I’m old school when it comes to foreign policy,” Green said. “Partisanship ends at the ocean’s edge. When we’re overseas, we’re Americans.”
The first trip took place the week before the Russian invasion, and Green met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba, getting a sense of what support they needed from the United States.
“I stressed (to them) the bipartisanship in Congress,” Green said. “What Putin has done has united Congress in a way it hasn’t been united since I’ve been there.”
Importance of U.S. involvement
When asked about the importance of trying to stop Russia from overtaking Ukraine, Green said the U.S. can’t allow problems in Europe to spill over.
“You think back to last century, and America waited on both cases until it was way too late. A hegemon in Europe basically led us into World War I and World War II, and in both of those cases, when we ultimately got involved it cost hundreds of thousands of American lives,” he said.
“We don’t want that again; we can’t afford to have a hegemon in Europe because it always spills out into the rest of the world. An authoritarian Vladimir Putin in Russia seizing a democratic country – even though it’s not a in true alliance or a member of NATO – is unacceptable.”
Ukraine’s success against the Russian invasion has revealed two important lessons, he said.
First, “The Russian bear doesn’t have the teeth we thought it did; it’s really struggling to maneuver, at least beyond the Donbas region. Their ability to project power – to do logistical support for that power – has been shown to be very weak.”
The second lesson relates to the importance of Pentagon funding for special operations forces. “Our special forces guys, we’re training the Ukrainians.”
Green went to Poland and Romania to meet with 82nd Airborne Division and 101st Airborne Division troops who are there to support those NATO countries as Russian troops build up near their borders.
The American troops are “chomping at the bit” to help the Ukrainians fight. But Green said Putin’s “little red button” means that, for now, the U.S. has to be constrained in its response to the conflict.