Senator urges ‘firm response’ to Russia after rebel elections

Russia’s recognition of an election in separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine calls for a “firm response” from the United States and its allies, according to the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

{mosads}“The U.S. must work with Europe to continue imposing costs against Russia and reassure our support for Ukraine through stepped-up assistance that will help Ukrainians reinforce their sovereignty,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said in a statement.

Corker said the elections, held over the weekend, violated the terms of a cease-fire agreement between Moscow and Kiev.

The Kremlin’s “recognition of an illegal rebel vote in eastern Ukraine demands a firm response,” he said.

Rebel representatives in the contested Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk in recent days have declared the election of new leaders, according to Reuters.

The votes come as NATO officials are raising concerns about flights by Russian military aircraft into European airspace.

“My opinion is that they’re messaging us,” Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said at a Pentagon briefing Monday. “That they are a great power and that they have the ability to exert these kinds of influences in our thinking,”

Relations between Russia and the U.S. and Europe have been icy since Moscow annexed the Ukrainian province of Crimea earlier this year. The Kremlin has since given aid, including military weapons, to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The U.S., in turn, has supplied Ukraine’s military with $150 million in non-lethal aid, stepped up military exercises with partners in the region and imposed rounds of economic sanctions on Moscow.

Corker, who would likely take over the Foreign Relations panel should the GOP win majority control of the Senate on Tuesday, noted that in September the panel unanimously approved legislation that would expand sanctions on Russia’s defense, financial and energy industries, as well as grant lethal military and non-military assistance for Ukraine’s military. 

The legislation, co-authored by Corker and Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), would also give Ukraine energy, defense sector and civil society assistance; tap Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia as major Non-NATO allies; and “expand broadcasting programs to counter Russian propaganda in countries of the former Soviet Union,” according to the Tennessee lawmaker.