In case you were wondering, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) still sounds like she has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about, even though she acts as though she does. In a recent video message against the prospect of going to war with Russia — something that top U.S. leaders have said over and over again that they’re against, Greene downplayed the seriousness of Russian aggression in Ukraine, stating that the stand-off between those two countries is “an eight-year long smoldering conflict in which peace agreements have been routinely violated by both sides.” These comments essentially directly back up the Russian claim that Ukraine has done something to provoke the current devastating war, which is where Greene was imagining the U.S. might intervene. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) blasted Greene as one of the Russian government’s “useful idiots” after those remarks circulated. As Cheney observed on Twitter Thursday:
‘Putin is targeting and slaughtering civilians in a brutal unprovoked war against Ukraine, a sovereign democratic nation. Only the Kremlin and their useful idiots would call that “a conflict in which peace agreements have been violated by both sides.”’
Putin is targeting and slaughtering civilians in a brutal unprovoked war against Ukraine, a sovereign democratic nation.
Only the Kremlin and their useful idiots would call that “a conflict in which peace agreements have been violated by both sides.”
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) March 17, 2022
It really does sound as though Greene’s comments could have been made by some Russian propaganda factory — Ukraine provoked the war! they say, but no: they’re from a sitting member of the U.S. Congress, apparently willing to gloss over the realities of murderous Russian aggression for the sake of… something. As for the substance of what Greene said, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst stated in a 2017 article for the Atlantic Council in reference to the peace agreements surrounding earlier Russia-Ukraine conflicts isolated to the latter country’s eastern portions that “the Russians and their proxies are responsible for most of the violations, and [the] Ukrainian violations are often in response to Moscow’s. The Ukrainians recognize that Russian violations have led to the loss of additional territory with no serious response from the West… Highlighting peripheral developments at the expense of constant ceasefire violations and ignoring context is both misleading and dangerous. It feeds the agenda of those who would like to end sanctions on Moscow. They argue that both Moscow and Kyiv are violating [the] Minsk [agreements]; therefore, there is no reason for disadvantaging Moscow by maintaining sanctions.”
We will make sure Ukraine has weapons to defend against the invading Russian force.
We will send money and food and aid to save Ukrainian lives.
We will welcome Ukrainian refugees with open arms.
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 14, 2022
