Weeks of military build up at the border ended Thursday, February 24th when Russian forces invaded their former Soviet Union member state Ukraine under the orders of President Vladimir Putin. Congresswoman from Iowa’s Second District and service veteran Mariannette Miller-Meeks recently shared her views with KCII of the strategies that have been employed over the previous months to defuse tensions and how to levy punishment against Russia following invasion. “All of us can agree that the first avenue would be that of diplomacy. While you’re functioning diplomatically, there’s talk of sanctions and then you impose those sanctions. There is no such thing as a minor incursion. This is an act of war and it was important to impose sanctions much earlier. I think it was a little bit too little, too late. We can certainly do more. Energy production in the United States. Refuse any shipments of oil and natural gas from Russia and not pay Russia for any oil or natural gas. If we’re going to try to hurt them economically, we need to make sure that we hurt them with the most impact possible. I can tell you this from my 24 years in the military, you don’t tell them what you are going to do militarily or not. I don’t think any of us want to put troops on the ground in Ukraine but I don’t think you telegraph that information.”

Russia and Ukraine have so far released conflicting casualty reports, with Russia claiming 498 Russian soldiers and 2,870 Ukraine forces have been killed. Ukraine states that nearly 6,000 Russian troops have been killed but has given minimal information on their own military fatalities. Ukraine officials have claimed that 2,000 civilians have been killed, while the United Nations said this week that they could confirm only 136 civilian deaths. The UN also reported as of March 2nd, more than one million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries causing a humanitarian crisis in eastern Europe.