GOP senator says US needs ‘more clarity’ on whether Ukraine support includes Crimea

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) on Sunday said the Biden administration needs to be clearer about whether U.S. support for Ukraine extends to Russian-occupied Crimea.

“I think they should be more clear. I think it should be all the territorial integrity of the entire country, which includes Crimea. And so yes, I think they need more clarity on that, and the national security adviser didn’t demonstrate it in his interview with you today,” Sullivan said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan appeared before the Alaska senator on the program and sidestepped questions about whether the U.S. would support Kyiv’s efforts to retake annexed Crimea.

The Biden adviser said that the administration will address the “question of Crimea” further “down the road” and stressed that Ukraine should focus on taking back territory in the south and east.

In the subsequent interview, Sullivan, the Alaska senator, said he thought the national security adviser demonstrated “unease” when pressed on the question.

Sullivan affirmed there’s a “strong contingent” of Republicans who support U.S. aid to Ukraine, but argued there are “legitimate criticisms of this administration’s conduct of supporting the Ukrainians.” The Biden administration recently announced it would equip Kyiv with battle tanks, but hasn’t yet answered calls to send over F-16 fighter jets.

“Jake Sullivan is talking about, ‘Well, we’re not going to do F-16s today. That’s for another time, not right now.’ That has been a pattern with this administration from the beginning, where they have slow rolled critical military weapons systems,” Sullivan said.

The senator argued that “now that we are in this battle, it’s strongly in our interest to continue to support the Ukrainians to restore their territorial integrity and their sovereignty without committing US forces.”

Russia’s war on Ukraine crossed its one-year mark last week, days after President Biden made a surprise visit to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and reaffirm continued U.S. support, pledging another $500 million in aid.

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