Americans across the United States were praying and holding rallies in support of the Ukrainian people. Including the city of Parma Ohio which has a large Ukrainian population, Gov. Mike DeWine attended the Ukrainian Catholic Church service Sunday morning. And Sen. Rob Portman was part of a community prayer service at St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral, in the afternoon. Before heading to the event, Portman went on Meet the Press to give his thoughts on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the actions that the United States has taken so far.
“The world is standing up in ways that, frankly, I haven't seen this kind of unity since 9/11. And I think that is something that will, in the end, be very helpful,” says Portman. “But we've got to provide more military assistance. We've got to tighten up these sanctions further. By the way, in your conversation with the ambassador, you talked about how sanctions did not deter, that's because tough sanctions were not put in place. So we could have and should have done more. And many of us were calling for that. But we are where we are now, so we need to continue to tighten it up, including putting all Russian banks under this SWIFT ban.”
Portman was on the show with Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner. In light of the Russian threat, both senators are urging the passage of a bill they introduced that requires information be shared with the U.S. Government about cyberattacks, then that information can be passed on to the business sector so they can protect themselves.
