A few days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Congressman Brett Guthrie was in Brussels meeting with NATO and other foreign officials. Guthrie said while American troops won’t be sent to Ukraine, there is still plenty of reason for U.S. citizens to be concerned about what is unfolding.
Guthrie was in Daviess County Saturday morning to attend the Farm City breakfast and discuss local agriculture.
As the Republican leader of a bipartisan delegation, Guthrie was in Germany this week meeting with NATO members. He also had a meeting via Zoom with the Ukrainian parliamentarian. That was happening around the same day Russian President Vladmir Putin announced he was recognizing the independence of Ukraine’s Donbas region.
“So some of these people that are out fighting now, I was just talking to Wednesday. It’s kind of surreal to me,” Guthrie said. “I’ve been going to these meetings for the last few years, and a lot of Americans really called upon the French and the Germans to do more for European security. I think it was just a lot of wishful thinking that surely in the 21st century, you’re not going to have the kind of issues we had in the 20th century. Well, here we are. We have an egotistical madman in charge of one of the largest armies in the world, and he moved them into Ukraine.”
Guthrie said he thinks Americans should support the Ukrainian people. He denounced recent talk by some groups of people that are either supporting Putin or think his invasion attempt should go unpunished.
“The idea that we have people saying we should have accommodated him taking the Donbas region, that’s not what he [really wanted to accomplish with the invasion],” Guthrie said. “… So some conservative people were making that argument [that accommodating Putin would keep things peaceful]. We see that wasn’t even what he wanted. What he wanted is to make sure there wasn’t a democracy with a market economy and a rising standard of living for its people on his border, because he knew that’s what his people would want to.”
While Guthrie said the U.S. should show support, he said there wasn’t a chance of any American soldiers being sent to Ukraine.
“They’re obviously not part of NATO, so the obligation as in American men and women to fight for them is not on the table,” he said. “But it is absolutely amazing how they’re taking the fight to the Russians, and it just makes you feel good about Ukraine.”
Still, Guthrie said that it’s important to follow what unfolds and hope that Russia’s invasion attempt is unsuccessful.
“There’s no [American] troops in Ukraine, but people need to know that if you look at the geography there — the Baltics, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania — they’re all members of NATO. So if this gets out of Ukraine and into Lithuania — what they think could be the next target — that triggers World War III,” Guthrie said.
Tying everything together at a more local level, Guthrie said in some ways Ukraine is like Daviess County.
“It’s among the best farmland in the world,” he said. “I think it is the third-largest grain producing area in the world. If they don’t get their grain in the ground this spring, they’re not going to have food in Europe. That’s where the food is in Europe. It’s the breadbasket of Europe.”
He continued, “We’re at the Farm City breakfast. The reason I want to point that out, the ability for a nation to feed itself is a national security issue. That’s why people want Ukraine, because they can’t feed themselves.”
Drawing the parallel to food security locally, Guthrie said he voted for what is commonly known as the Farm Bill passed by Congress in 2018. He said the legislation is important for local farmers and the communities they feed.
According to the USDA, “The 2018 Farm Bill provides support, certainty, and stability to our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and forest managers by enhancing farm support programs, improving crop insurance, maintaining disaster programs, and promoting and supporting voluntary conservation.”
Guthrie said, “It gives security to farmers so that if there is a bad year, if there is a drought, they can live to fight another day. If we just let farmers go out of business just because there’s a rain or a drought or something one year, if we don’t have that kind of crop insurance that elevates them … think about how disastrous that would be for us if we depended on other people for our food.”
