Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), the Co-Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, better known as the Helsinki Commission, today questioned expert witnesses at a Commission hearing on “Opposing Russian Imperialism in Ukraine and Beyond.”
In his opening statement, Congressman Cohen said in part:
“I support the president in bringing our European allies together on sanctions and other issues and we need to work together, or else it will be looked upon as an American war Russia, and that’s what we don’t want. I believe we should give – facilitate – the transference of the Polish airplanes, or if they need to be, if they’re Hungarian, Moldovan, Slovakian – whoever has the planes that can fly. There was a story in The New York Times today that said that the Ukrainian air force has done a spectacular job and that’s why Russia has not taken over control of the skies over Ukraine. They’ve had dogfights. They’ve been successful in shooting down missiles. They’ve been successful shooting down some Russian planes, and they’ve made their sorties and come back and survived.
“I believe it was President Zelensky who said we have more pilots at some point than planes. I understand – and I’m not a defense expert… -- but they want the planes. They think they need them. They’ve been effective. I understand that certain anti-aircraft weapons and drones are effective, too, and they should have them as well.
“But I don’t understand why they don’t get the planes. If Zelensky and everybody in Ukraine says ‘give us the planes,’ and if they have the pilots that have done a spectacular job flying the planes, they can do even more with more planes and we, in my opinion, need to do everything we can to facilitate that…We should get them the planes.”
On Vladimir Putin, Congressman Cohen said: “This man is insane…He’s narcissistic, he’s a sociopath, he’s cruel, he’s doing the unthinkable, unfathomable. Who knows where he’ll stop?”
See the Congressman’s full opening statement here and his questions about Ukrainian defense opportunities to witnesses here.
Witnesses at today’s hearing were:
- General (Ret.) Philip Breedlove, NATO’s Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Distinguished Professor of the Practice and CETS Senior Fellow, Georgia Tech;
- Dr. Michael Kimmage, former Policy Planning Staff, U.S, Department of State, Professor of History, The Catholic University of America; Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States;
- Dr. Miriam Lanskoy, Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia, National Endowment for Democracy.
