Russia's threats to civilian aviation and public transportation are yet another act from the "playbook" President Vladimir Putin and his administration uses to get out disinformation in their goal to "beat everyone down to submission," Sen. Joni Ernst said Thursday on Newsmax.
"We've seen a lot of this from Vladimir Putin over the last several days," the Iowa Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "Your initial reaction is, This is abhorrent, and it is very, very provocative, but it's exactly what the Putin regime will do is utilize these methods of social media and various platforms to get out disinformation and threats."
But still, the United States must step up and push back and refuse to take such threats idly, said Ernst.
"We need to be doing absolutely everything we can to ensure that the Ukrainians have the armament and the means to push back on Russia — everything that we can provide," said Ernst. "I spearheaded an effort to make sure that we can get them lethal aid as well as those MiG fighters, so we'll see how this goes in the next day or two. But every hour makes a difference for the Ukrainian people."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation early Thursday tweeted a threat to civilian aviation and public transportation in response to other countries "flooding" Ukraine with "the latest weapons systems."
Such threats, Ernst added, are Russia's effort to get the United States and the West to back down and allow it to "roll rampant" in Ukraine without any intervention.
"Ukraine is a sovereign nation," Ernst said. "We are held in account as well with the Budapest agreement to aid Ukraine and help them against adversaries like President Putin and Russia, and by arming the Ukrainian people, we are honoring that agreement that we entered into to get Ukraine to take away its nuclear arms. We are obligated to assist this nation in its defense."
Ernst continued that it is "encouraging" that high-level peace talks have started between Russia and Ukraine, but pointed out that the peace talks were held Thursday in Turkey, which does "tend to lean a little toward Putin and Russia."
"It would be interesting to know exactly what they are talking about," she said. "I think that would be extremely helpful, but they do need to continue with talks. We need to end the siege upon Ukraine, but we can't do it at risk to Ukraine and their sovereign nation."
The two countries did not find a breakthrough Thursday on the matter of a cease-fire or humanitarian matters during the first high-level talks that had been held since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, early reports of the meetings indicated.
Ernst also called on President Joe Biden, who is planning to travel home to Delaware this weekend, to do more to help mediate a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine violence.
"We need to show American leadership here," she said. "We are the strongest nation in the world. We should be exhibiting that. I wish the president would step up and take this seriously. Ukrainians are dying every day. God bless the people of Ukraine."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
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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