Yes, the world is mounting pressure against Russia’s president Vladimir Putin since evidence suggests that Russian equipment shot down Malaysia Airline MH-17, killing 298 innocent people. But what do Republicans think of the man they call “a leader?”
Circumstantial evidence suggests that Russia provided the missile that Ukrainian rebels used to shoot down the Malaysian Air jetliner on July 17, killing 298 passengers and crew, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in television interviews.
“There’s a build-up of extraordinary circumstantial evidence,” Kerry said yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing.”
Putin confronts worldwide scorn just as the U.S. and its allies were trying to push him into a corner over the annexation of Crimea and his support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and Europe tightened sanctions last week, and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron told Putin on a call yesterday that the attack was “totally unacceptable,” his office said in a statement.
“Russia risks becoming a pariah state if it does not behave properly,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said yesterday in an interview on Sky News. “We now need to use the sense of outrage that is clear to get a further round of sanctions tightening against Russia.”