Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore told Newsmax on Wednesday that the recent missile attack by Ukraine against targets inside Russia "is the responsibility of Russia" for starting the invasion.
The Biden administration earlier this week gave Ukraine's government permission to use long-range U.S.-made ballistic missiles against a Russian weapons arsenal in Bryansk, the first time these weapons have been fired beyond the Russian border.
Gilmore, the former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), told "Wake Up America" that the rocket attack by Ukraine gives the embattled nation "a tool" they can use to fight "an aggression like we haven't seen since World War II."
He said that the attack "is the responsibility of Russia. It is not the responsibility of the United States or Ukraine," adding that "Ukraine is fighting for its sovereignty and … for its life."
Gilmore emphasized that the purpose of the missile strike is to "demonstrate that [Russia] can't win and that they have to start to rethink their position, even though they're committing war crimes and atrocities right now."
The former ambassador noted that Ukrainians "intend to survive, and they needed this because otherwise Russia just gets to marshal all their troops, including North Korean troops, with impunity and then march them all into Ukraine. This is an attack upon that."
He added, "We should remember that the escalation of this war is being done by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, not by the United States and not by Ukraine."
Gilmore said, "It is Putin who has marched in foreign troops — 10,000 or so or even more North Korean troops, which is astonishing."
He further stated, "Russia cannot continue to sustain this war, so they're going to be looking for a way out. But the trouble is that once they are committed [to] their aggression against another sovereign country, they upset the entire international order, and I don't know how you give them a way out."
Gilmore said that Russia must "be persuaded that they're not going to be permitted to conquer another country, which is Ukraine. Ukraine is an independent country."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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