COLUMBUS – Ohio leaders and candidates for office have issued a variety of responses to Russian aggression against Ukraine, some of which highlight divisions in a rapidly changing Republican Party.
UPDATE: This story has been edited to include additional statements and more recent comments.
Nearly all, including Gov. Mike DeWine criticized the invasion as illegal and unprovoked.
At the direction of President Vladimir Putin, Russian forces have invaded Ukraine in violation of international law.
This is unacceptable, and all freedom-loving people should stand against this unprovoked invasion. (1/3)— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) February 25, 2022
Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling, as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee.
Ukraine’s government said Thursday that Russian tanks and troops rolled across the border in a “full-scale war” that could rewrite the geopolitical order and whose fallout already reverberated around the world.
Outgoing Republican Sen. Rob Portman blasted Thursday morning’s attack as “illegal” and “unjustifiable.”
“This unwarranted brutality will kill thousands of innocent people and create a massive humanitarian crisis. President Putin’s justification for this attack, to ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine, along with his comments about the illegitimacy of the sovereign nations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, is cause for further alarm. The United States should lead the international community to hold Russia accountable for this tragedy,” Portman wrote in a statement Thursday.
But one of the Republicans seeking to take Portman’s place when he retires, J.D. Vance, had the opposite response.
Earlier in the week, Vance said he doesn’t really care what happens to Ukraine and did not back down significantly from that position after the invasion began.
“We must remember that the only real solution to tyranny abroad is a strong America, with protected borders, a prosperous middle class, and healthy people. Because further engulfing ourselves in Eastern Europe harms and distracts from those goals, we must avoid blundering our way into the conflict there,” the author and venture capitalist said Thursday.
Another Republican candidate hoping to replace Portman, Mike Gibbons said Tuesday that “Russia should be isolated politically and economically and face tough economic sanctions.”
“While I am one-hundred percent opposed to the deployment of American troops to Ukraine, Russia’s invasion must not go unanswered,” Gibbons said.
“Vladimir Putin’s insatiable pursuit of power has driven him to a decision that will kill innocent men, women and children in a democratic nation. The United States, in coordination with our European allies, must impose the strongest possible sanctions and work swiftly to make him pay for the pain and suffering he has already caused and will continue to cause,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, of Niles, who also wants to replace Portman.
Ohio’s Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown, sounded more like a Republican when he wrote that “Russia’s military incursion into eastern Ukraine is an act of naked aggression against the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian sovereignty that violates international law.”
Congressional Republicans, especially in the Senate, have been largely united in opposing Russian aggression.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has yet to publicly condemn Putin’s moves, instead praising his guile.