Critics are slamming Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene as one of Vladimir Putin’s “useful idiots” after the Republican gave a speech on Wednesday with numerous false or misleading claims about the Ukraine invasion that echoed Russian talking points.
The far-right congresswoman gave a speech on Facebook Live on Wednesday night following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to a joint session of Congress.
In her remarks, Rep Greene said, “If we truly care about suffering and death on our television screens, we cannot fund more of it by sending money and weaponry to Ukraine to fight a war they cannot possibly win.”
She also claimed without evidence that Ukraine’s 2014 revolution was a US-backed coup, that major US political figures like Joe Biden and Mitt Romney have business interests in Ukraine, and that the source of the invasion was misconduct on “both sides” by Russia and Ukraine.
Commentators were quick to pounce on the remarks, with some like writer Matt Yglesias calling them, “just bizarre,” while others pointed out how the Georgia legislator’s remarks echoed past apologists for Hitler—and present-day Kremlin propaganda.
“You know, that Hitler fellow is a bad egg, but there’s no reason to help Europe,” Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project wrote on Twitter, mocking the GOP rep following her speech.
“Putin is targeting and slaughtering civilians in a brutal unprovoked war against Ukraine, a sovereign democratic nation,” added Ms Greene’s fellow Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, writing on Twitter that, “only the Kremlin and their useful idiots would call that ‘a conflict in which peace agreements have been violated by both sides.’”
Outside of the backlash from Washington insiders, others pointed out that very little of the main points of Ms Greene’s speech were factually accurate.
Though Joe Biden’s son Hunter has had significant business dealings in Ukraine during his time as a lobbyist, and is under federal investigation for his business practices, the president himself isn’t accused of business interests in Ukraine by anyone beside right-wing conspiracy theorists. In the fall of 2020, an investigation by Senate Republicans found no evidence of Joe Biden wielding any improper influence over Ukraine based on his son’s business relationships.
There’s also no basis to Ms Greene’s comments that Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or climate envoy John Kerry all have financial interests in Ukraine.
Nor is it accurate to say, as the Georgia rep did in her speech, that Ukraine is a “country which government only exists because of the Obama State Department helped to overthrow the previous regime,” a popular Kremlin propaganda line.
In truth, the 2014 revolution in Ukraine that toppled the former president Viktor Yanukovych began when he reneged on plans for a trade and political deal with the European Union in favour of aligning with Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union instead.
Mr Yanukovych fled the country after security forces shot and killed protesters in Kyiv and the Ukrainian parliament voted unanimously to remove him from office.
It is technically true that “both sides,” as Ms Greene claimed, the other has violated the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements between Russian and Ukraine, which sought to end the simmering regional conflict between the two countries, though most international observers agree the present invasion is the result of unprovoked Russian aggression and revanchist ambitions.
The Independent has reached out to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office for comment.
