Tennessee U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) released a statement on Wednesday professing his support for Ukraine and his admiration for its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for being “on the front lines of democracy.”
“As the House Ranking Member of the Helsinki Commission…I have strongly supported Ukraine as a free and democratic country since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022,” Cohen said.
“I will continue my strong support for Ukraine and admire the work of President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. They are on the front lines of democracy and are fighting for democracy in Europe and around the world,” Cohen added.
The congressman also targeted President Donald Trump in his statement, alleging that Trump “ordered” Ukraine and European nations to be excluded from talks between the U.S. and Russia in Saudi Arabia earlier this week.
“If this war is to come to a successful conclusion, Ukraine and all our NATO allies need to be at the negotiating table. We cannot discuss the future of Ukraine without Ukraine,” Cohen said.
Trump addressed questions regarding Ukraine’s omission from this week’s talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia, telling reporters on Tuesday, “Today I heard, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years.”
In addition, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ensured on Tuesday that no nation “is being sidelined” in efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine while also stressing, “[U]ltimately, the Russian side will be indispensable to this effort.”
Cohen’s admiration for Ukraine’s fight for “democracy” comes as the country has not held a presidential election since 2019 when Zelensky was elected to a five-year term.
Despite Zelensky’s first term ending in May 2024, his declaration of martial law has allowed him to stay in office and the suspension of elections until martial law is lifted.
Trump pointed this out in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, calling Zelensky a “Dictator without Elections.”
Cohen’s admiration for Zelensky has been on display since the beginning of the war in 2022 as the congressman has consistently advocated for sending billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the country and even visiting with the Ukrainian president in 2023, calling Zelensky at the time the “most admired man in the world.”
In addition, one of the fourteen pieces of legislation Cohen has introduced so far in the 119th Congress includes a resolution that would “condemn Russia for committing acts of genocide against the Ukrainian people,” call on the U.S. to “undertake measures to support the Ukrainian Government to prevent further acts of Russian genocide against the Ukrainian people,” and support “tribunals and international criminal investigations to hold Russian political leaders and military personnel to account for a war of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Image “Rep. Steve Cohen” by Rep. Steve Cohen.
I agree with you. He embarrasses us every time he shows up on national TV
Ukraine, and the western countries pulling the strings are so full of corruption it’s unbelievable. As the democrats kept feeding the war fires with billions of free money to Zelensky, the military industrial complex kept making more and more money. Zelensky say’s he didn’t receive all the money Biden said we sent them. Gee, I wonder where it went.
Russia is not the boogie man, the corrupt democratic party, the deep state, and the globalists controlling NATO and the EU are the boogie man. This whole Ukraine conflict reeks of corruption on the western side. Russia is just trying to defend it’s nationality after being repeatedly lied to by the West.
Those squealing the loudest have the most to loose.
In my opinion and reading the history of the US and Ukraine and especially during the Obama/Biden regime in my opinion it is clear the war was entirely a blackmail scheme by Zelensky to rape America for money because he has the goods on Biden and others. The US and Ukraine have been partners in crime for years.
In my book Cohen falls under several lists…Disgrace, Embarrassment and Communist
You conveniently forget that the UK had a ten year gap in elections for Prime Minister during World War 2, and that’s without having a significant percentage of their country under enemy occupation. Did that make Winston Churchill a “dictator”?
Cohen loves corrupt, perverted, left-wing dictatorships. Especially when they provide him with kickbacks from American taxpayer largesse.