Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blasted President Joe Biden over Russian military drills taking place in the Caribbean and near the United States, saying that they wouldn't had taken place if he were the head of State.
Speaking at Hollywood Fire Rescue Station 5, the governor said the magnitude of the exercises were a result of weakness displayed by the Biden administration. "I think it's really concerning, I think that under this administration, they've put out a posture that has invited more aggressive actions from our adversaries," he said, according to Florida Politics.
He went on to say that even though these aren't the first drills to take place in the region, "the amount of activity among hostile nations in our own hemisphere is probably at a level that we have not seen in many, many years."
"If you look at how the governments of this hemisphere are constituted, now, most of them are more aligned with the Russians and the Chinas, unfortunately than with the United States and the free world," he added. The Russian warships made a port stop in Cuba on Wednesday and will stay there for a week.. They could also do so in Venezuela.
The U.S., in the meantime, deployed a series of ships and aircraft to track the Russian vessels conducting the drills as they passed less than 30 miles off South Florida's coast but stayed in international waters.
The drills, which began on Tuesday, involve three ships and a nuclear-powered submarine. The Biden administration said it's not concerned about the drills, the first of their kind in five years. Nonetheless, three destroyers and a submarine reconnaissance aircraft were deployed to track them.
A U.S. official had already said that the drills have been planned for some time and are not likely to be a direct response to President Joe Biden partially lifting a ban on Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weaponry to attack targets within Russia, as well as stepped-up exercises with NATO allies.
In another passage of his message, DeSantis said he would approach the situation in a more belligerent way, as "history has shown that these bad actors respond to strength" and "are not going to be deterred by weakness."
"They're going to be deterred because they know that that's not somebody that you want to mess with. So we're failing as a country with the deterrent capability. And I think it starts at the top with the President of the United States," the governor concluded.
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