Blumenthal hoped the bipartisan support for Ukraine at least in the Senate — and the personal testimonies they plan to bring home to Congress and the Oval Office— may help shift the conversation.
“He needs to see and hear that message as well from us, from the American people,” he said of Putin.
In Kyiv, the senators said, the war’s human toll was impossible to ignore. Graham pointed to what Ukrainian officials and Yale researchers estimate are nearly 20,000 children forcibly deported to Russia — calling their return a matter of justice, not diplomacy.
Blumenthal described standing at mass grave sites in Bucha, where civilians were executed with shots to the head. The destruction, he said, and the stories of those who survived, made clear the stakes of delay. “Putin is a thug. He’s a murderer."