PEORIA, Ill. – He said it probably before he knew he’d be one of 400 members of Congress that would officially be sanctioned by Russia, but Congressman Darin LaHood does believe that country’s president — Vladimir Putin — committed war crimes during the Ukraine invasion.
And LaHood says he believes Putin should be brought up on charges for it.
“We just wrote a letter to the [Director of National Intelligence] and the CIA, asking that all of those war crimes…that eventually they be declassified where they can, so they can be turned over to The Hague and the International Criminal Court, for [Putin] to be held accountable,” said LaHood (R-Dunlap).
LaHood is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
He says the U.S. needs to continue to give Ukraine all the humanitarian and military-related aid that the country can.
But, LaHood admits that the U.S. can’t give them everything.
“We can’t give them Blackhawk helicopters. We can’t give them F-16’s. We can’t give then the Patriot missile system, because they don’t know how to operate it,” said LaHood. “What we’re stuck with is, we’re having to give them Russian equipment — that’s the S-300 missile system. That’s the tanks, that’s the drones. The only things we give that that are ours are the Javelins and the Stinger missiles.”
LaHood isn’t willing to completely praise the Biden administration for how it’s handled the situation, but he is willing to give credit where credit is due.
“I think they’ve united NATO. They’ve united the world against Putin, and we need to show the world this type of behavior, this type of thuggery, this type of brutality will not be tolerated,” said LaHood.
LaHood says there is growing concern that Russia might change course and start using chemical and biological weapons, and if that happens, he believes NATO will have to respond with force.
LaHood is one of the nearly 400 members of Congress to officially be sanctioned by Russia. Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-East Moline) is another.
Comments