Three years ago, Russian “President” Putin ordered thousands of his troops to invade their neighbor Ukraine which had done nothing to provoke Russia’s attack. This invasion is a fact. During these three years of bloody warfare, over a million soldiers from Russia and Ukraine have been killed or seriously injured. Even worse, Putin has attacked Ukraine’s civilian population causing death and destruction. Roughly a third of its 41 million population has been displaced from their homes.

Yesterday, Europe brought a Resolution to the United Nations General Assembly to condemn Russia for its invasion. Like similar resolutions in the past, the world joined together to condemn Russian and its War Criminal “President”. What was different this time was that our United States Ambassador to the UN, obeying Trump’s command, voted against the resolution. We joined the “Axis of Evil” nations in defending Putin. I was not surprised by Trump’s action. Just last week, he lied to the US people, falsely affirming that the war had been started by Ukraine.

Nevertheless, I was stunned and deeply saddened by our Republican leaders who defended Putin. For example, where is Marco Rubio? He spent his long public career denouncing the expansionist goals and war crimes of Putin and his country. Eight years ago, Senator Rubio grilled Rex Tillerson, who at that time was Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State. Rubio wanted to make sure that Tillerson would publicly denounce Putin as a war criminal for his unlawful invasion and takeover of Crimea in 2014. During these eight years, Putin has not changed. He has not had a moral conversion. Putin is far guiltier now than he was back then. It does not take much intelligence to see that Putin now has much more blood on his hands. Marco Rubio, now our Secretary of State, has changed. He has lost his conscience and sold out his soul. He has bowed the knee and kissed Trump’s presidential ring. So have most Republican leaders. It only takes an ounce of courage to speak the truth. Apparently, Republican leaders don’t have that ounce.