Pence says ‘we need to continue to arm Ukraine,’ ‘sanction every financial institution in Russia’ until Russia withdraws

Former Vice President Pence said in an interview aired on Wednesday that officials needed “to continue to arm Ukraine” and “sanction every financial institution in Russia” until Russian forces leave Ukraine.

“No. 1, we need to continue to arm Ukraine. They’re not a NATO ally. We don’t have a mutual defense obligation, but we ought to be shipping more and more armaments, anti-tank missiles,” Pence told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Pence also described Biden’s sanctions against Russia — which now include Russian elites and their relatives, sovereign debt, two Russian financial institutions, and Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers and CEO — as “weak.” 

“This initial round of sanctions, weak as it is, is not enough to stop Putin’s ambitions to redraw territorial lines in Europe by force. What we ought to do is we ought to sanction every financial institution in Russia until the Russian military fully withdraws from Ukraine,” Pence said. 

Pence expressed concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be moving his invasion across Ukraine “with ambitions that I think go well beyond the so-called separatists areas, that it likely won’t stop there.”

Pence’s comments come as Putin gave an address in the early morning on Thursday announcing military operations in eastern Ukraine, NBC News reported.

The development came just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional appeal for peace.

“The Ukrainian people want peace,” Zelensky said. “The government in Ukraine wants peace and is doing everything it can to build it.”

“Neighbors always enrich each other culturally,” the Ukrainian president said. “However, that doesn’t make them a single whole. It doesn’t dissolve us into you. We are different, but that is not a reason to be enemies. We want to determine, build our future ourselves, peacefully, calmly and honestly.”