Press Releases

Sen. Warner Leads Bipartisan Group In Urging President to Strongly Oppose Sale of French Warships to Russia

~ Letter also calls for NATO allies to halt supplying other arms to Russia ~

Jul 22 2014

WASHINGTON – In a bipartisan letter to President Obama, U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Bill Keating (D-MA) urged the President to strongly oppose the sale of French warships to Russia. The bipartisan and bicameral letter follows Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, its support for armed rebels fighting the democratically-elected government in Ukraine, and amid Russia’s threats to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine and the rest of Europe. The letter also cites growing evidence that Moscow provided separatist rebels in Eastern Ukraine with sophisticated antiaircraft weapons believed to have been used to shoot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. The letter also calls on President Obama to compel our NATO allies to commit to not sell weapons or engage in other defense industrial cooperation with Russia.  

“Our NATO allies should not be rewarding Putin’s inexcusable behavior by providing him with deadly weapons,” Sen. Warner said. ”President Obama must condemn in the strongest possible terms the plan by France to sell these warships to Russia.”