Ted Poe: “10 years ago this August, Russian tanks rolled across the border into the independent nation of Georgia. After 5 days of…”

“10 years ago this August, Russian tanks rolled across the border into the independent nation of Georgia. After 5 days of bloody fighting, with thousands of innocent Georgians displaced from their homes, the conflict ended with the Russians promising to pull back its forces. I happened to be in Georgia 1 week after the Russian invasion and saw the tanks on the high ground and the destruction that the Russians made of Tbilisi. It is 10 years since that invasion and Moscow and its troops still occupy one-third of sovereign territory of the Republic of Georgia. The Kremlin claims these Russian troops are in Georgia as peacekeepers. Are you kidding me? It is an invasion. They are a heavily armed battle group waiting to provoke Georgia into another fight. They have committed horrific human rights abuses against the Georgian people, often harassing civilians and denying Georgians the ability to move about their country freely. The continued presence of Russian troops on Georgian soil presents a major violation of international law. America's response at the time was to condemn and issue sanctions against the Russians, but the Obama administration removed the punishing sanctions against Russia as part of its foolish reset with the Kremlin. We now know this demonstration of weakness only encouraged further aggression from Russia, and it invaded a neighbor state in 2014.…”