Florida’s Governor is calling for a cease-fire in Russia’s war with Ukraine.
In comments made to Nikkei Asia, Ron DeSantis called for a cessation of hostilities, lest a situation happen such as the entrenched bloodshed in World War I.
“You don’t want to end up in, like, a Verdun situation, where you just have mass casualties, mass expense, and end up with a stalemate.” he said. “It’s in everybody’s interest to try to get to a place where we can have a cease-fire.”
More than 300,000 people died in Verdun.
DeSantis also suggested the fight was Europe’s fight, not so much America’s concern.
“The Europeans really need to do more. I mean, this is their continent. The U.S. has provided security for them. And yes, Poland — there’s some that are doing stuff, and that should be appreciated. But Germany, they’re not doing anything,” DeSantis said.
The Governor’s comments on Ukraine are the latest likely controversial musings on a war that has seen him take a variety of rhetorical positions, which he has claimed mean the same thing.
In March, DeSantis decried the war as “something that we have to have an open-ended blank check policy for” and “essentially a stalemate,” depleting “our current weapons stockpiles here in the United States.”
DeSantis originally deemed the war a “territorial dispute” and not one of America’s “vital national interests” in a statement provided to Tucker Carlson, in a seeming effort to curry favor with the now-former Fox News host.
He soon enough walked that position back, telling Piers Morgan “it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it.”
“If I could snap my fingers, I’d give it back to Ukraine 100%,” DeSantis said. “But the reality is what is America’s involvement in terms of escalating with more weapons, and certainly ground troops I think would be a mistake. So, that was the point I was trying to make, but Russia was wrong to invade.”
DeSantis’ muddled position has earned him criticism from former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, each of whom rejected his “territorial dispute” framing.
Former President Donald Trump knocked the Governor’s “neocon rhetoric” when he tried to walk back the “territorial dispute” language last month.
The sharpest criticism may be from 2024 candidate Nikki Haley, however, who said the Governor was “weak in the knees.”
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