Waterloo Times

U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks urged legislators to stand alongside U.S. allies in Ukraine amid tensions between the Eastern European Country and Russia. 

First erupting in 2014, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been an ongoing area of tension in Eastern Europe that reached a fever pitch in late 2021 when Russia began to move troops and military equipment to the border with Ukraine following a period of violence earlier that year, according to Global Conflict Tracker. 

“We cannot abandon another one of our allies,” Miller-Meeks said in a tweet Jan. 22. "#Russia is clearly on the move and we must stand with the people of #Ukraine."

President Joe Biden made it clear on Jan. 20 that if Russia's President Vladimir Putin attempted to move troops into Ukraine, it will be considered an act of invasion by the United States, according to ABC News. 

"It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera," Biden said, according to ABC News. "But if they actually do what they're capable of doing with the force they've massed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine."

Earlier this month, diplomats working at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine and their families were ordered to return to the U.S. and leave Ukraine as tensions continue to rise, according to CBS News. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also offered his own statement in response to Biden's conference last week. 

"We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations,"  Zelenskyy said in a tweet Jan. 20. "Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the President of a great power."