New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN that she would oppose any deal with Russia that limits the future strength and size of the Ukrainian military. “Ukraine right now has the biggest army in Europe, they are the most technologically advanced,” she said. “We want that army on the allied side, fighting with Europe and the United States in any future conflict.” “We also know that Russia is arming in a way that doesn’t just allow them to go into Ukraine, but allows them to go after NATO countries and Eastern European countries. We need to make sure that that doesn’t happen in the future,” she said.

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN: I think it’s premature to suggest that there’s a final deal, but I understand that good progress was made yesterday in negotiations. We’ll see how the Russians respond to taking some of the items off the table. The original proposal was obviously a Putin wish list for everything they want, including no Ukrainian option for joining NATO, no NATO enlargement in the future, and capping the size of Ukraine’s military. None of that should be acceptable to the United States, to the Ukrainians, or to the Europeans. So the devil is in the details here. We need to see what kind of security guarantees are being provided to Ukraine, because what we’ve seen time and again is that Russia makes a commitment- they made a commitment not to go into Georgia; they went into Georgia in 2008. Then they signed the Budapest Agreement in the ’90s and said, We won’t attack Ukraine, and they should give up their nuclear weapons. Well, they’ve attacked Ukraine now and Crimea. Then they went into Ukraine. So we can’t trust what Russia says and what Putin says. What we need is real security guarantees that are going to ensure that Ukraine is protected, that its sovereignty is protected in the future. JOHN BERMAN, CNN: You said progress has been made. I guess, specifically, progress in what direction? What progress do you think there would need to be for you to support this-and for the Ukrainians to feel comfortable? SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN: Well, again, I think we need to have real security guarantees. As I’ve said, I think any cap or any ability for Russia to determine how Ukraine’s military moves forward is unacceptable. Ukraine right now has the biggest army in Europe. They are the most technologically advanced. We want that army on the allies’ side, fighting with Europe and the United States in any future conflict. So we need to make sure that that is protected. We need to make sure that Ukraine’s sovereignty is protected, and that Russia understands that any attempt to go back into Ukraine is not only going to be met with European force, but with United States force. We also know that Russia is arming in a way that doesn’t just allow them to go into Ukraine, but allows them to go after NATO countries and Eastern European countries. We need to make sure that that doesn’t happen in the future. And there needs to be some accountability. This idea, in the original proposal, that anybody who committed war crimes would not be held accountable for that- that’s not acceptable. We can’t allow an aggressor like Vladimir Putin to get away with that, because it then sends a message to China, to Iran, to North Korea, to our other adversaries.

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