Rep. Victoria Spartz condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for the violence he is inflicting upon Ukraine in a GOP-led press conference Tuesday.
Spartz, a Republican who represents Indiana’s 5th District, is the first Ukrainian-born member of Congress, and has been an advocate for Ukrainian sovereignty in the face of Russia’s invasion.
“This is not a war,” she said. “This is genocide of the Ukrainian people.”
Putin, Spartz said, cannot accept that Ukrainians want to be aligned with the United States of America, as a democracy.
Ukraine born, now serving in Congress: What Victoria Spartz wants from U.S. on Russian war
“They want to be free people,” she said. “They want to be with the west.”
Spartz said her 95-year-old grandmother lives in the city of Chernihiv, and that Russian forces are bombing the city “nonstop, day and night.”
“They are leveling the cities to the ground, destroying the people,” Spartz said. “They are slaughtering them like animals.”
The congresswoman also criticized President Joe Biden’s response to Russia’s aggression, saying he “talks … and doesn’t do things.”
“What, is he going to wait when millions have died, then he’s going to do more?” she said. “We have not just a moral duty, we are the leaders of the free world.”
Biden has issued a barrage of sanctions on Russia, largely in the financial sector. The U.S. has targeted almost 80% of banking assets in Russia, which could have dire impacts for Russia’s economy. The U.S. also blocked Russia from SWIFT, the global financial messaging system.
The Department of Justice is also assembling a task force to go after Russian oligarchs who have benefited from Putin’s regime, Biden said in his State of the Union address Tuesday. Biden also announced he would further isolate Russia and add “an additional squeeze on their economy” by closing American airspace to Russian flights.
“We are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine,” he said. “Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever.”
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Spartz said Putin needs to understand the U.S. is serious about the sanctions Biden has imposed but urged further action.
“I think we have an obligation and duty to save this world, help Ukrainian people to survive, and this president (needs) to get his act together and exercise some leadership,” she said. “What’s happening under his watch is (an) atrocity.”
Later in the press conference, Spartz responded to a reporter’s question about her family remaining in Ukraine. She discussed the impact of totalitarian leaders Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin on the Ukrainian people, saying her “whole family was killed by them,” and called Putin’s actions “barbaric and brutal to the level of unbelievable.”
“These people will not surrender,” she said. “But we need to give them a chance to survive.”
USA Today contributed to this report.
Contact IndyStar trending reporter Claire Rafford at crafford@gannett.com or on Twitter @clairerafford.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Victoria Spartz urges further aid for Ukraine in emotional speech
