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PAWAC leader: Putin is ‘agitating’ with Ukranian border threat. Sen. Durbin calls him a ‘thug’ and a ‘bully’

FILE - A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. Russia has concentrated an estimated 100,000 troops with tanks and other heavy weapons near Ukraine in what the West fears could be a prelude to an invasion. Germany's refusal to join other NATO members in supplying Ukraine with weapons has frustrated allies and prompted some to question Berlin's resolve in standing up to Russia. (AP Photo, File)
AP
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AP
FILE - A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. Russia has concentrated an estimated 100,000 troops with tanks and other heavy weapons near Ukraine in what the West fears could be a prelude to an invasion. Germany's refusal to join other NATO members in supplying Ukraine with weapons has frustrated allies and prompted some to question Berlin's resolve in standing up to Russia. (AP Photo, File)

Sen. Dick Durbin says the U.S. will not tolerate a Russian attempt to invade Ukraine, while the head of the Peoria Area World Affairs Council believes Russian president Vladimir Putin is making a show of force to flex his muscle as a global leader.

Angela Weck
Angela Weck

“I think Putin wants the attention, number one, to demonstrate that he is a world power and he wants the world to recognize that Russia is a world power,” said PAWAC executive director Angela Weck, a Bradley University affiliate instructor who teaches courses on Russian history and foreign policy.

“He's just agitating, and I believe he's doing it largely for his domestic audience. He's got a number of protests, a number of different groups that are angry about a wide variety of things within his own system, not the least of which is over extension of the military. This is a way for him to claim that he is defending Russian territory or Russian-like territory to his own people.”

In recent days, Russia has amassed thousands of troops and conducted military exercises along its border with Ukraine, heightening concerns of a possible invasion. Weck said she hopes the escalation is posturing on Putin’s part, noting he has not crossed the border yet and thus has not violated any international laws.

“I just characterize what's going on in Ukraine like when you were kids and you sat in the backseat with your sibling, and you put your hands really close to your sibling but not touching,” said Weck. “Your mom said, ‘don't touch your brother, don't touch your sister,’ and you'd say, ‘I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you,’ – but you're really, really close. That's what Putin is doing.”

During a news conference Tuesday in Tazewell County, Durbin called Putin a “thug” and a “bully,” and expressed sympathy for Ukrainians.

“This country of 43 million people is scared to death that he's going to invade and try to take over their country,” the Illinois Democrat said. “They are not part of the NATO alliance, but I'm very proud of the fact that our country is standing up for them and saying, ‘No one should do that to a sovereign and free nation.’

“They should be able to decide their own future. It shouldn't be decided by Moscow.”

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) during a press conference on Jan. 25, 2022 in Creve Coeur, Ill.
Hannah Alani
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WCBU
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) during a press conference on Jan. 25, 2022 in Creve Coeur, Ill.

Durbin's comments came shortly after Russia launched military drills near Ukraine in Crimea, a formerly Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014. Weck said the instability in the area paved the way for Putin’s power play.

“Russia has certain ambitions about Ukraine; it has a historical sense that it owns Ukraine, that Ukraine is not fully independent, and that it would like to perhaps certainly exert influence over Ukraine – if not fold it back into the family, as it were,” said Weck.

“After he moved off the military bases and seized Crimea in 2014, there were a couple of breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine – Donetsk and Luhansk – that have pro-Russian rebels who live there, and they have been fighting a civil war since that time. The ‘Minsk-2’ (agreement), as it's called, ended that war theoretically. But every day, every week, there are Ukrainian soldiers who are shot on the border in that contested territory because they are not allowed to shoot back.”

Durbin said President Joe Biden is making the right call in his approach to handling the situation, with warnings of harsh economic sanctions if Russia does invade Ukraine.

“We've got a lot of friends in the European Union and NATO allies that are joining us to put pressure on Putin not to do this, saying that he'll pay a heavy price,” Durbin said. “I'm not talking about military-to-military, but economic sanctions that have been described to me and they're very serious. They could shut down the Russian economy, that's how serious they are. So it's a grave situation.”

Weck notes that while Ukraine is not a NATO member, neighboring countries like Poland and Estonia are.

“They have perceived their biggest danger to be Russia, and they are quite concerned,” she said. “If Russia decides to invade Ukraine, will it stop at Ukraine, or will it keep going? We won't have any argument to not fulfill our commitment to NATO to help defend them.”

Weck said she doesn’t anticipate a military response from the U.S. if Russia does invade Ukraine.

“It's always a possibility; there's never a time that that's not off the table. But I think it's unlikely,” she said. I think it's more likely that we would send them to our NATO partners, and already, in fact, there are NATO forces in those NATO partners.

“But sending U.S. troops into Ukraine would be a hard sell for our domestic audience.”

Contact Joe at jdeacon@ilstu.edu.
Hannah Alani is a reporter at WCBU. She joined the newsroom in 2021. She can be reached at hmalani@ilstu.edu.