East Texas congressional candidates give thoughts on response to Russia-Ukraine conflict

EAST TEXAS (KLTV) - With Russia conducting military operations inside Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced sweeping new sanctions against the country.

“This is going to impose a severe cost on the Russian economy both immediately and over time,” the President said.

And although President Biden said US forces will not be fighting against Russia in Ukraine, he did say thousands of forces have been sent to Germany and Poland. Something Democratic candidate for Texas 1st Congressional District Victor Dunn agrees with.

“It would be nice if we could shore up troops, perhaps maybe 100,000 troops, put them in Poland tokind of counteract what this bully, this bully Mr. Putin is doing,” Dunn said.

Republican candidate Nathaniel Moran said policies from the Biden administrations makes it difficult to respond appropriately.

“The Biden administration has really crippled our energy industry here in the United States, because of that we cannot assist western European countries at this moment, we cannot be energy independent in the way we need to be at this moment,” Moran said.

Democratic candidate Gavin Dass believes we should go further with economic sanctions.

“We need to go much further on the sanctions that we’re putting on to address more of the actual root cause,” Dass said.

Democratic candidates Jrmar Jefferson and Stephen Kocen hope to avoid escalating the situation.

“I believe we are $28 trillion in debt, we can’t afford a war,” Jefferson said.

“We cannot fight with our military in Ukraine without escalating this to a much larger situation,” said Kocen.

Republican candidate Aditya Atholi says for the time being, economic sanctions are the way to go.

“Right now I think it is extremely appropriate to use economic or financial sanctions, but as far as a military role I would say no not at all,” Atholi said.

Copyright 2022 KLTV. All rights reserved.