The "very least" the United States can do is greenlight the weapons systems Ukraine needs to fight back against the Russian onslaught, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick insisted in a Newsmax interview Wednesday.
"It's not our technology," the Pennsylvania Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report." "It's not our people. It's just equipment that will allow them to do our fighting for us. Russia is not just a threat to Ukraine; it's a threat to the entire world."
Meanwhile, the troops from the United States "have been training Ukrainians for years," but all were pulled out when the Russian troops were gathering at the Ukraine border in Russia and Belarus, said Fitzpatrick.
"The Ukrainians have been trained well," he said. "That's why they're performing quite frankly as well as they are."
But still, Fitzpatrick added, the Ukrainians are "absolutely right" in their request for equipment to protect their country.
"The administration has drawn this bizarre distinction between lethal equipment being driven across the border, like Javelins and Stingers, and lethal equipment being flown across the border, such as the former Soviet MiG-29 fighter jets in Poland," the congressman said. He added, "Several other countries have exported vital weapons systems.
"This administration has not yet greenlighted the transfer of those weapons systems, and they're important for two reasons. First, it is Soviet technology. It's not U.S. technology, so if it falls into the wrong hands it doesn't pose any U.S. national security threat. Second, the Ukrainians do know how to use them, so if they were given those items, they could create and enforce their no-fly zone, and that solves that problem."
Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, described his trip with a delegation of congressional representatives last week to Ukraine as having been "heartbreaking."
"If you're a male age 18 to 60, Ukraine, you're stopped at the border," he said. "They're not permitted to cross. To their credit. They don't want to cross; they want to stay and fight for their country. But there are between 12 and 15 million Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 and the vision of, and the sight of, them kissing their elderly parents, their spouses, and their children good-bye was one of the most heart-wrenching things I could have ever seen in my life."
Then, he said, those men are having to fight Russian forces where they are outnumbered by a margin of 10-to-1 physically and "completely outmatched technologically."
"Many of them are going back certainly to die for their country, so it was just heartbreaking to see," said Fitzpatrick.
But President Joe Biden, Fitzpatrick said, "is weak."
"We all know he's weak and weakness invites aggression," he said. "There's nothing more provocative than weakness, and it's the weakness that is being exhibited in the White House every day, that's leading to the increased aggression by Russia."
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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