McCain: Ukraine Putin's 'crown jewel'

Sen. John McCain says that Ukraine is the “crown jewel” of the empire Russian president Vladimir Putin is trying to rebuild.

“Putin wants to restore the Russian empire,” McCain (R-Ariz.) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday. “Ukraine is the crown jewel.”


McCain said the United States and its allies need to take a “broad array” of actions toward Russia, including imposing economic sanctions and targeting individuals that have been involved in Russia’s military invasion of Crimea.

Though he admitted that these steps — such as refusing to send a delegation to the paralympics or cancelling the G-8 Summit in Sochi — “probably” won’t make a difference in the short-term.

First, he said, “we have to regain our credibility, which we have none.”

McCain said that a “key decision” of President Barack Obama’s administration was saying that it was going to strike Syria and then backing off. “That sent a message all over the world,” he said.

He has “not a lot” of confidence in Obama’s National Security advisers — Susan Rice, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry — because their advice to the president has been to cut the military.

“Not good timing,” McCain said of Hagel’s announcement of cuts to the military last week.

“The President of the United states believes that the Cold War is over. That’s fine, it is over but Putin doesn’t believe it’s over,” McCain said earlier Monday at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual conference in Washington, D.C.

He called Putin’s use of military force in Crimea “the ultimate result of feckless foreign policy where nobody believes in America’s strength anymore.”