Penalties for Putin

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Russia’s foreign minister yesterday assured his American counterpart that the Kremlin would “respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine.” Secretary of State John Kerry responded in a press conference that what matters at the moment are actions, not words.

That certainly should be true of the United States and its allies. But Vladimir Putin is clearly calculating that the West is only going to talk about opposing his predictable effort to break up, if not control the whole of, the Ukraine.

Much worse is to come if there are no real costs to Putin associated with Russia’s threatening military mobilization just across the boarder from Ukraine and the armed seizures by Russians of government buildings in the Crimea region. The West must bring to bear real strategic and economic penalties, not empty rhetoric.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. Learn more at SecureFreedom.org.