The Biden administration has made "a lot of mistakes" when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and even now, "they are not doing things that are really meaningful," Rep. Victoria Spartz, the first and only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, told Newsmax Thursday.
"I think now they need to regroup, and they've been dragging their feet," the Indiana Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "They do a lot of talk, and the aggressors like [Vladimir] Putin do not care about the talk. They only care about actions."
Further, deterrence is what is needed when it comes to the Russian president, but the administration "didn't do that," said Spartz. "They were playing politics with energy policies and with beefing up our eastern front … they also were not very effective in how they negotiated."
Speed and agility were needed instead, as the "strength of the response" is the biggest deterrent when it comes to Putin and to keep him from escalating the war, said Spartz.
The Ukrainians are "fighters" and a "heroic people," against the Russian Army, she added, but they need weapons from the United States.
Spartz also pointed out that Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has called for "weapons, weapons, and weapons" before Thursday's meeting of NATO's foreign ministers in Brussels, and she said she agrees.
Kuleba, in his remarks before the meeting, commented that "the more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved, the more cities and villages will not be destroyed, and there will be no more Buchas," reports the BBC.
"This is a serious situation but it's also I think it's an opportunity for us if we really do what we say and help Ukrainians to fight and win this war and really put Russia to the table and stop this craziness and insanity," Spartz told Newsmax.
Putin took advantage of a situation in which 'the West is weak" to make his move on a full invasion of Ukraine, according to Spartz.
"[The West is] busy with doing drama, [like] opening up borders, having bad policy, economic policy, inflation, everything else and not a very strong president on foreign policy," Spartz said. "So he [Putin] understood that's an opportunity for him, especially since what happened in Afghanistan. He's an opportunist, and he wanted to strike, and he thought it was an opportunity."
However, Putin underestimated the determination of the Ukrainian people and their will to fight to win, Spartz said.
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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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