After returning from a trip last weekend to Germany and Poland with a first-hand look at what is happening with Ukraine, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ruthless and a war criminal.
“Putin is a war criminal; he has been bombing hospitals and is trying to reduce cities to rubble,” she said during a virtual press conference from her Washington office. “He is trying to break the will of the Ukrainian people who only want to remain sovereign and a free nation.”
Capito said her journey was a "compelling trip” as she visited American troops and a refugee center at the Polish/Ukrainian border.
“The human tragedy of this whole thing is ridiculous,” she said of the refugees who are mostly women and children. “The message from them is, we need more help and we need it now.”
About 3 million refugees have fled the country, most of them coming through Poland.
“That is more than the population of West Virginia,” she said, adding that it is “mind-boggling” how Poland has in a short period of time accepted the refugees with open arms and, along with non-governmental organizations, provided them with aid, food and comfort.
“It is unreal how wonderfully they have treated the refugees,” she said. “That really hits you when you are on the ground and you can see it for yourself.”
Seeing it first-hand also brings home the sense of urgency in providing that aid as well as military equipment support, especially since Putin has “overestimated” Russia’s ability to take control of Ukraine and has underestimated the ability of Ukrainians to defend their country, and their resolve to do so.
Putin has a “bigger and more powerful war machine,” but the Ukrainian people “have vowed to fight to the death in the fight for their freedom. They just need the lethal military equipment like javelins (to destroy tanks) and stingers (anit-aircraft)…”
Capito said she is not privy to the intelligence related to what the U.S. and NATO allies are doing behind the scenes, but she believes covert operations have been underway to help the Ukrainians.
“It just makes sense,” she said, adding that Ukrainian troops are already familiar with the military weapons and technology because “we have been training Ukrainian troops for seven to eight years in NATO areas.”
Although she remains hopeful that more sanctions and the unity of NATO will put pressure on Putin, diplomacy does not appear to be working and Putin may not back down.
“Nobody really believes that just because he is bogged down he will give up or be satisfied to just retreat,” she said, adding that he “just wants to destroy and conquer.”
However, stopping him may boil down to the Russian people to “sour on what is happening, if they haven’t already.”
Fears of escalation continue, with the threat of using nuclear weapons.
“I share that concern,” she said, as do the bordering countries like Poland.
Capito said being in these countries helps bring home the point that Europeans have a keen sense of history.
“They know what happened after World War II,” she said of the “tyrannical” takeovers and occupation of countries by the USSR, including Poland, and now it is again “happening in their own front yard.”
“It is deeply troubling, I think, to all of us,” she said of the nuclear threats. “It is crossing into an incredible area that is just devastating, that is generational and very frightening…”
Capito said NATO is looking at all possible options and contingencies and she continues to be impressed with the U.S. military presence in Europe, about 100,000 troops, including some she met from West Virginia, and the American military is “something to behold.”
Capito also talked about the U.S. Senate hearings on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, with whom she met privately earlier this week.
“Right now, I remain open-minded,’ she said, and will make up her mind after the hearings are finished. “I am concerned about her judicial philosophy.”
In particular, Capito said she wants to know if Jackson’s stand on any overreach of the executive branch and her possible support of that would be based on politics.
Jackson is “very well qualified, very engaging and an accomplished attorney and judge,” she said, but it has been “a little hard” to obtain her stand on her judicial philosophy in those areas.
“I don’t want an activist judge” who may side with the executive branch which may share similar political views, she said, and such a scenario could create “huge impacts.”
Capito also wants to see as many refugees as possible come to America.
Capito, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and 37 other members of Congress this week sent a bicameral letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken advocating that the State Department assist Ukrainian refugees and aid American families who have already begun the process of adopting Ukrainian orphans.
Specifically, the letter asks the department to aid the Ukrainian government to establish a consular office in Poland to process paperwork required for adoption. The letter further asks about current efforts by the department to aid Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees.
“We write to thank you for the work of the United States Department of State to assist the people of Ukraine during this crisis and to make you aware of a particular group of orphans amongst the many fleeing the country,” the members wrote. “There are families already towards the very end of the process to adopt Ukrainian orphans, and they are waiting for approval from the Ukrainian government to be united with their adopted children on U.S. soil.”
The members continued, “We believe the State Department can do more to urge or aid the Ukrainian application process to continue, especially for cases close to finalization. … Helping these orphans to join their American families expeditiously will allow them to get to a safe, nurturing environment while freeing up resources for other refugees. In a war zone and a refugee crisis, it is often the most vulnerable who bear the greatest consequences.”