Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has stated that the American military should focus on defending the United States and not be involved in assisting Ukraine in targeting Russian civilians.
Greene’s comments come in response to a deadly attack on a beach in Sevastopol, Crimea, on Sunday. A volley of ATACMS missiles, supplied by the US to Ukraine, was used in the attack. One of the missiles, containing cluster munitions, struck a busy beach, resulting in the deaths of five civilians, including three children, and injuries to over 150 people.
“This should not be happening,” Greene posted on X (formerly Twitter). “Imagine if Russia, using a Russian satellite, fired cluster munitions on a Florida beach.”
“The only border our American military should be defending is our own border,” the Georgia Republican added.
Greene’s comments were made in response to a report that a US Global Hawk military drone was present in the Black Sea during the Ukrainian attack. The drone was reportedly assisting Ukrainian forces in using the US-supplied missiles.
“Are winning hearts and minds? How hard will [US President Joe] Biden continue to poke the bear ahead of the November elections?” the author of the post asked.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military fired five ATACMS missiles at Crimea. While Russian air defense systems destroyed four of the missiles in mid-air, the fifth was damaged and detonated its cluster warhead over the packed beach.
The Kremlin has described the beach attack as an act of terrorism and has accused the US of being equally responsible. Moscow’s ambassador in Washington has stated that ATACMS missiles “can’t be launched” without targeting information and intelligence supplied by the US, and that such attacks happen whenever American drones are in the Black Sea.
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy on Monday morning to demand an explanation for Washington’s role in the attack. Russian officials told Tracy that Sunday’s “bloody atrocity” would “not go unpunished.”
The US Embassy in Moscow has not yet commented. When asked for its response to the Ukrainian strike, the Pentagon simply said that “we have seen the reports and have nothing to say.”
Meanwhile, Mikhail Podoliak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has defended the strike – and the use of cluster munitions – by claiming that there are no civilians in Crimea, only Russian “occupiers.”
Crimea was historically a Russian peninsula, but it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR by Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev in 1954. Its population voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia in 2014, following the US-backed coup in Kiev.