- Sen. Chris Coons said Putin previously was given "the mistaken impression that … we were divided."
- Now, he said, "we are in a moment similar to 1939."
- He expects billions in extra funds will be required for humanitarian and national security needs.
Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat of Delaware, blamed the crisis in Ukraine on the West's lack of a forceful response to Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years, including after his interference in the 2016 US presidential election that Donald Trump won.
"It may be hard to imagine, but I think we are in a moment similar to 1939, where the initial taking of Crimea and the Donbas — parts of the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk — and the lack of an immediate and forceful response from the West to Putin's interference in our 2016 election, gave him the mistaken impression that perhaps we were divided," said Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a key ally of President Joe Biden's.
Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and pro-Russian separatists have controlled parts of the Donbas region bordering Russia for nearly a decade.
When Biden became president, he invested months in visiting Europe, connecting with NATO allies, British and Canadian partners, and meeting with Putin in person in Geneva to convey the message that Biden knows Putin's intentions, Coons said.
"One of the things I think President Biden has done forcefully and repeatedly is to clarify that we will defend every inch of NATO territory," Coons said.
Coons' comments to reporters on Friday came as Republicans at the conservative CPAC conference in Orlando have been blaming Biden for Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Coons returned on Thursday from a weeklong trip to Europe, where he was part of a bipartisan delegation to the Munich Security Conference and then traveled to Poland and Lithuania to meet with leaders there.
For senators, like him, who have traveled to countries that have broken free from former Soviet domination, "it really has an impact on you," he said.
"It really moves you and helps you see both what may happen next in Eastern Europe… There are some tragic parallels to what happened in 1939," he said of the year when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and, with the Soviet Union, attacked Poland, leading to World War II.
"My concern is that Putin's aggression will not stop with Ukraine, that there are other former Soviet republics that he will consider next, whether Moldova, Armenia or Georgia," he said.
Coons said he expects the US will have to take steps to reduce prices at the gas pumps and grocery stores as a result of the conflict, and that Biden and his senior leadership is focused on that. But he said he expects Biden, during his March 1 State of the Union Address, to make clear the costs of turning away and the importance of standing with European allies.
"This is a critical turning point in world history," he said. "This is the first time since the Nazi invasions of 1939 that a major European country has used massive military force to redraw the boundaries of Europe and a failure to respond forcefully and in a united way will have significant consequences."
On Thursday, senior administration officials briefed the entire Senate during an hour and a half call, he said. His takeaway is that there is bipartisan support for providing whatever additional supplemental appropriations or sanctions authorities that Biden may request or decide is required.
"I think you will see in the State of the Union, a strong bipartisan support for our president who will deliver a forceful message, both reinforcing our sacred commitment to NATO as the most important alliance the United States has, and our determination to provide support for Ukrainian refugees, for a Ukrainian resistance and for the future of a free and democratic West," he said.
Coons said he's "confident that we will need billions of dollars" to support what's likely to be millions of refugees flooding into Poland and other countries throughout NATO and Eastern Europe. The US should also be prepared to provide additional funding, both for COVID responses and global public health measures, but for the humanitarian response to the Ukrainian crisis, said Coons, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
He also expects requests through other subcommittees for the enactment of sanctions against oligarchs, support for the military reinforcing the eastern flank of NATO partners, and for resupplying, training, and supporting the Ukrainian resistance.
"It would be a wild guess on my part, but I would be supportive of an emergency supplemental of at least 10 billion dollars, perhaps more, to meet these vital national security and humanitarian needs," he said. He later added $10 billion could be on the low end because it doesn't count "what may be a robust defense-side request."