Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., told Newsmax Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s increased attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, like tactics used by Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin, make him a “war criminal” who is trying to “freeze” and “starve” civilians in his ongoing war.
“What Putin is doing by attacking the infrastructure of Ukraine is that he's trying to repeat Joseph Stalin,” Wilson said during “Saturday Report.” “Stalin made every effort to starve the people of Ukraine to death, and now Putin is repeating that in the 21st century and it is inconceivable to freeze the people of Ukraine to death.”
Wilson, who just returned from a Congressional delegation visit to Ukraine said that people there are resolved to hold off the Russians, and that if the United States furnishes them with Patriot missiles for defense, it will go a long way helping them in that defense.
“I've been in Kyiv a year ago in December, so I was able to compare a year later, and the difference is that they were planning, in the best tradition of Polish resistance, to have Ukrainian resistance, and now that is far beyond resistance,” he said. “The resolve of the people of Ukraine and the improved policies of [President Joe Biden’s] administration, they're not as good as they should be, but they are certainly better than they were, and that is to provide the people of Ukraine the air defenses. The ability to defend themselves.”
Wilson said that Putin’s attacks on infrastructure are war crimes and giving Ukraine the missiles would be a “game changer.”
“It should become clearer and clearer, sadly, to the people of Russia that they are being sacrificed for the personal gain,” he said. “It is Putin's war. It's Putin's war for his personal gain, and he is sacrificing young Russians, and then using mercenaries to commit war crimes.”
Wilson said he and others in Congress are introducing a resolution asking the United Nations to reduces Russia's influence. “We're going to make every effort and it's going to be bipartisan,” he said. “The Russian Federation has been hijacked, in my view, by a mafia led by Vladimir Putin, war criminal Putin, and they should be removed as one of the permanent members of the Security Council there.”
Wilson said that unlike previous wars, cell phone cameras now allow Ukrainians to capture “every atrocity” on video which will help identify the units responsible for future war crimes cases.
“We really need to identify to the people of the Russian Federation that their country has become a pariah so long as Vladimir Putin is the autocrat in charge,” he said.
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