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                 US Senator: Russia Policy Needs to Be Tougher

   by Ia Meurmishvili, Jonas Bernstein

   In what could be a preview of the kind of foreign policy debates that
   will feature in the U.S. presidential race later this year, a senior
   Republican member of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee has
   strongly criticized the Obama administration's policy toward Russia.

   In an interview with VOA's Georgian service, Senator James Risch from
   the western U.S. state of Idaho said the economic sanctions the United
   States imposed on Russia for its annexation of the Black Sea peninsula
   of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine have been
   insufficient.

   "Well, I think to some degree they're working, but 'some degree' really
   doesn't cut it," Risch said. "You need to get to a much stronger
   position then where we are. So, my view would be that we ought to
   ratchet that up.

   "I think the U.S. and other countries have a lot of experience with
   sanctions and how they work and it seems that we could be doing more
   than what we're doing. And I think that would be very helpful - to try
   to get the attention of the Russians, and get them to understand that
   we are very serious about their adventurism and the things they've been
   doing in recent years," he said.

   Western sanctions

   Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in early 2014, the U.S. and
   European Union have imposed several rounds of sanctions targeting
   Russian officials and entities, along with Russia-backed Ukrainian
   separatists. The sanctions include asset freezes and travel bans.

   Risch said the lack of a tough Western response to Russia's invasion of
   Georgia in 2008 emboldened President Vladimir Putin and led to Moscow's
   subsequent military moves in Ukraine and Syria.

   "Unless someone does something, you can expect the same thing to happen
   over and over again. That's what history teaches us," he said.

   "And that's exactly what happened here - there were essentially no
   sanctions for what Russia did, and as a result of that, why would they
   hesitate when they look at Crimea, when they look at Ukraine, or
   anywhere else," Risch said.

   "They're absolutely convinced, particularly with the administration we
   have, which of course is going to change in not too long, they can get
   away with these things, and get away with them with impunity," he
   added.

   In a recent interview with The Atlantic magazine, President Barack
   Obama noted that Russia intervened militarily in Georgia in August
   2008, when George W. Bush was still U.S. president and the United
   States still had 100,000 troops in Iraq.

   Obama also questioned whether Russia's subsequent military
   interventions were a sign of strength.

   Ukraine, Syria

   "Putin acted in Ukraine in response to a client state that was about to
   slip out of his grasp. And he improvised in a way to hang on to his
   control there," Obama said.

   "He's done the exact same thing in Syria, at enormous cost to the
   well-being of his own country. And the notion that somehow Russia is in
   a stronger position now, in Syria or in Ukraine, than they were before
   they invaded Ukraine or before he had to deploy military forces to
   Syria is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign
   affairs or in the world generally," the president said.

   Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert
   violence," he said.

   Ukraine, Obama added, is a "non-NATO country" that will be "vulnerable
   to military domination by Russia" no matter what the U.S. does.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/us-senator-says-russia-policy-needs-t
   o-be-tougher/3284083.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-senator-says-russia-policy-needs-to-be-tougher/3284083.html