Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday said the United States’ role in the Russia-Ukraine war is “terrible for the Ukrainian people.”
“We have neglected many, many opportunities to settle this war peacefully,” Kennedy said in a live town hall event with NewsNation, moderated by Elizabeth Vargas. “I think the way that we have conducted the war is bad … is terrible for the Ukrainian people.”
The 2024 presidential candidate said he doesn’t know exactly what a negotiated peace would look like, or whether it would mean ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia. But he blamed decades of U.S. and NATO policy toward Ukraine and Russia for creating conditions for the war.
“We’ve turned that nation into a proxy war between — a pawn in a proxy war between Russia and the United States,” Kennedy said.
“We were told this was a humanitarian exercise. … But when President Biden was asked why are we over there, he said for regime change of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” Kennedy said.
Early last year, Biden remarked that Putin “cannot remain in power,” but later said he was not calling for a regime change.
Kennedy also referenced comments from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that among the U.S.’s goals in aiding Ukraine is to “see Russia weakened.”
“That is the opposite of a humanitarian mission, that is a mission about a war of attrition in which the people dying are Ukrainians,” Kennedy said at the NewsNation event.
NewsNation and The Hill are both owned by Nexstar Media Group.
