Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., on Sunday urged the Biden administration to provide more aid to Ukraine after Vice President Kamala Harris said Russia was committing “crimes against humanity” in its invasion.
“I believe a decision will be imminent here when we return to Washington that the government will begin training Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 fighter jet,” Graham, a prominent defense hawk, told ABC’s “This Week” co- Moderator Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview from the Munich Security Conference.
That would mean a major escalation in US support, and President Joe Biden has signaled he does not want to commit. Foreign Minister Antony Blinken, who appeared separately in This Week, did not say whether the F-16s had been approved, but noted that proper training for Ukrainians is also important.
“Let me just emphasize this: how can you call this war by Russia a crime against humanity… and not give the victim of her crime against humanity the defensive weapons needed to stop the crime?” So we need to do two things quickly: make Russia a state sponsor of terrorism under US law, which would make it harder for China to supply weapons to Russia, and we need to start training Ukrainian pilots on the F-16 now.” said Graham.
On the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, world leaders gathered in Munich for an annual gathering to discuss global security, with Harris underscoring the need to use “brutal force” to resist authoritarian nations .
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal norms, and there is no doubt: these are crimes against humanity,” she said in a speech to the security conference on Saturday, rebuking Russia’s repeated denials targeting civilians and committing other atrocities.
When Raddatz pressed on This Week whether delivering F-16 jets and long-range missiles to Ukraine would provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin, Graham said he was more concerned about removing Russia from Ukraine altogether.
“I’m not worried about provoking Putin. i want to hit him And how do you beat him? Solidarity across the aisle in America and across the seas.”
“Let’s make sure we beat Putin in Ukraine or he won’t stop,” Graham said.
He said defeat for Russia meant they returned the Crimean Peninsula, which they illegally annexed in 2014. Graham pointed to a post-Soviet deal in the 1990s with Ukraine and other countries in which Ukraine agreed to surrender its nuclear weapons in exchange for a guaranteed set of borders.
“Failing to honor that commitment would trick Ukraine and reward Putin for rewriting nuclear weapons agreements,” he said.
He also doubled down on his hawkish views by calling for the establishment of international tribunals to try Putin himself and other Russian officials.
“They call Putin’s Russia a state sponsor of terrorism [and] They are creating international tribunals so that we can actually try Putin and his cronies in the international court as we did after World War II,” he said.
He said increasing aid to Ukraine would send a warning about Beijing’s ambitions to invade Taiwan and that the international community should stand ready to punish China for sending deadly aid to Moscow, as Blinken did in This Week” said they are considering.
“If that happens now, the world must crack down on China. … Any country that comes to their aid should pay a heavy price,” Graham said.
“That’s why we should label Russia as state-sponsored terrorism, because if you do that under US law and you supply lethal weapons to China, you’ll be sanctioned,” he said.
China’s foreign ministry insisted in a new statement that its relationship with Russia is “strategic” and “built on the basis of non-alliance, non-confrontation and non-targeting to third countries.” Graham told her not to get involved any further.
“For the Chinese, if you jump on the Putin train now, you’re dumber than dirt. It would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic after seeing the movie. Do not do that. “The most catastrophic thing that could happen to the US-China relationship, I think, is China giving lethal weapons to Putin and his crimes against humanity,” he said. “It would change everything forever.”
Separately, Raddatz asked Graham for his response to a recent report by the Georgia grand jury, which again confirmed that no “widespread fraud” was found in the 2020 presidential election. Graham was subpoenaed and testified after a phone call with Georgia Foreign Minister Brad Raffensperger about the 2020 election before they were confirmed.
Graham told Raddatz he had “no qualms about what I said” and said he agreed there had been no major fraud, noting that he voted to have the race certified.