Sen. John McCain on Wednesday warned that a provision of the omnibus bill making its way through Congress will help Russia and its brand of “comrade capitalism,” and said it’s a mistake given Russia’s recent actions that echo the Cold War.
McCain objects to the decision to allow Russian-made engines to be used in the U.S. space program, and opposes the continuation of those purchases allowed by this bill.
“We’re confronting a challenge that many had assumed was resigned to the history books,” McCain said. “A strong, militarily capable Russian government that is hostile to our interests and our values and seeks to challenge the international order that leaders of both parties have sought to maintain.”
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., pressed hard for the ban to be lifted in the spending bill “to guarantee America’s access to space, eliminate a possible national security risk, and secure approximately 800 jobs in Alabama,” a Shelby spokesman said Tuesday. But McCain was not pleased with Shelby’s efforts.
McCain reminded his Senate colleagues that Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and “invasion” of Ukraine was “the first time since the days of Hitler and Stalin that brute force had been projected across an internationally-recognized border to dismember a sovereign state on the European continent.”
“And now, in a profound echo of the Cold War, Russia has intervened in Syria,” McCain said.
