US governor calls Ukraine war 'territorial dispute' between Russia, Ukraine

WASHINGTON

Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of the US state of Florida, said Russia’s war on Ukraine is "a territorial dispute" between the two nations.

In response to a questionnaire from Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday, DeSantis, who is expected to seek the presidential nomination in the 2024 race, said the Biden administration's support for Ukraine distracts from challenges in the US.

"While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.

"The Biden administration’s virtual 'blank check' funding of this conflict for 'as long as it takes,' without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges," said DeSantis.

He said peace should be the objective, but warned that Washington should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of US troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders.

"F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable," said the governor.

Russia began the war in February 2022 and the US has been providing billions of dollars’ worth of security assistance to Ukraine since then.