“The number one question I’m getting right now is on Ukraine. Everybody wants to know what’s actually happening, what’s going on.”
An interested and vocal crowd gathered at CTX Coffee on Friday morning to hear from the U.S. Senator, up for re-election in June.
While national news is saturated with stories from the war in Europe, Lankford says there are others who are still wondering why the west even has an interest in this conflict.
“A land war in Europe has its own way of spilling out into the rest of the world,” he said, adding that the country has seen that historically, and it’s not something we want to see again.
“[Putin is] actually moving his way across Europe. And he’s made a very clear statement that Ukraine ‘used to be part of Russia and Soviet Poland.’ When he starts making statements like that, I think we should take him seriously and realize that this guy’s looking to recreate the Russian Empire by force.”
Lankford explains that although Ukraine is not a member of NATO, the United States has an agreement with them that dates back to 1994.
“They broke away from Russia,” he said. “There were still Soviet-era nuclear weapons still on teh ground in Ukraine. They turned 200 nuclear weapons over to us in 1994. Our government made the deal, ‘if you’ll turn those nuclear weapons over, if you’re ever in trouble, we will help you.’ I’m fully aware they’re not a NATO ally, but in 1994 we promised we would help them. We should be able to maintain that promise and to stay engaged with them.”
Lankford said that in about 2010, a pro-Russian president was elected in Ukraine. “The people of Ukraine hated him, but the Russians were able to influence the election there—not that we would ever see anything like that here—,” he added sarcastically. “The Ukrainian people threw him out in 2013 and put in a pro-Ukrainian president. When that occurred, the Russians moved into Crimea, and they moved into the Donbass.” That was in 2014, and Lankford says the Ukrainians have been fighting the Russians continuously ever since. “This is not a new deal, for them,” he said.
In 2017, the Oklahoma National Guard went to Ukraine and served there for a year, training the Ukrainian military on how to fight the Russians. In addition, the United States has provided stinger missiles, anti-tank weaponry, small arms, special forces, medical equipment, and money. “The American people have given about a quarter-billion dollars to the Ukrainians to be able to help defend themselves. That all goes back to that 1994 agreement that we made with them,” he said.
“Obviously the Russians are facing a lot of pushback on the ground from the Ukrainians,” he said. “They’re not finding this place to be as easy as they thought it would be.”
Lankford said that he believes Putin will continue the same strategy he began in 2014 of seizing, holding, and militarizing and then moving in, as he did with Donbass and Crimea. “This is just my guess, this is not an official government position—what I think he tries to do is to take all of that area of Mariupol, Odessa, all the way to Moldova, everything along the Black Sea that connects Russia to Moldova. He tries to take that, stops, militarizes it and then waits until the time to move into the rest of Ukraine from there.”
Lankford explained that Putin’s current moves are leaving him outmatched in the field, “They can’t maintain what’s happening on the ground. I think he’s got to find a spot, declare victory, militarize it and then try to move to the next area.”
What will the result of that strategy be for the Ukrainians? “That’s a worst-case scenario in many ways that starves Ukraine to death and takes away all their ports. They’re a sea-based country if they lose access to their ports, their economy can’t survive.”
Someone asked Lankford if he felt that the United States has held up its end of the 1994 deal. “I think we have,” Lankford replied.
Additional questions came in: “What about bio labs?” Lankford says he doesn’t believe the United States is doing biological research in Ukraine. “I don’t think there are Biolabs there, I keep hearing that in online sources … but I will tell you, when we do bioresearch for military purposes, we do them in the United States,” he said.
Breaking off the Ukraine conflict for now, a question was raised about reports of individuals being held without due process in relation to the incident at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
“There are not individuals without due process,” Lankford replied. “Everyone’s getting access to an attorney. It’s a much smaller number—not hundreds—that are being held.” He says that the information on every single person that’s been charged on January 6th can be found on the doj.gov website.
Lankford also made a statement to separate those who were present from those who actively broke the law. “The vast majority of the folks that were there, were there to be able to make their voices heard,” he said, adding that there’s also a difference between those who were simply crossing the threshold into the Capitol (“I think they probably knew it was a bad idea,”) and those who committed assault. “There’s a big difference between that person and the person that picked up a baton from a police officer and beat him with it,” he said. “Those are the individuals who are still being held,” he said.
Lankford is running for re-election this June.
