Republican Senator Claims ‘Communist’ Russia Is Invading Ukraine Because ‘They Need More Farmland’

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) claimed at an event earlier this week that Russia is “a communist country” with a starving population, which explains its aggression toward Ukraine.

Russia ultimately invaded its neighbor to the west on Wednesday night.

Speaking to the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce, Tuberville cast the Russians’ aggressive stance as being driven by the need for arable land, according to 1819 News in Alabama.

“He can’t feed his people,” Tuberville said, referencing Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s a communist country, so he can’t feed his people, so they need more farmland.”

A former KGB officer, Putin has long regarded the collapse of the Soviet Union as a disaster of the first order.

“First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” he said in 2005.

This week, Putin stated that Ukraine isn’t a real country.

“Radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence,” he said. “As we can see, this is absolutely wrong. The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of Bolshevik and Soviet leaders.”

Putin railed against the overthrown of a Russia-allied president in 2013. The following year, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula.

By all accounts, Russia’s invasion has nothing to do with an alleged inability to feed its people.

“We’ve been sanctioning Russia since 2014 since they came into Crimea,” Tuberville said at the event. “Sanctions don’t help.”