Top State Dept. Official Tells MSNBC that ‘Body Bags’ Will Return to Russia if Putin Invades Ukraine

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman warned on Thursday that “body bags” will return to Russia if Russian President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine.

Appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, Sherman remarked that if Russia invades Ukraine, “the consequences will not just be for the Ukrainian people, which will be terrible, but for the world community at large because Vladimir Putin will say that any autocrat can take action that undermines international principles that Russia has signed up to, to sovereignty, to territorial integrity, that countries get to choose their own political alliances and their own foreign policy.”

Sherman went on to warn that “not only will there be dire consequences to the economy of Russia by what we will do, not just the United States but the extraordinary alliance that exists with all of Europe and the United States and countries around the world, not only will that create consequences, but Vladimir Putin should understand that body bags will come back to Moscow as well.”

Sherman also predicted that the Russian economy “will be completely devastated” if Putin invades Ukraine and therefore Putin has “a very stark choice,” but “hope[fully] he makes the right choice.”

Currently, as many as 100,000 Russian troops are stationed along the Russia-Ukraine border and as many as 30,000 troops are along the Belarus-Ukraine border.

Watch above, via MSNBC.