By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – According to Illinois’ Senior Senator, Russia appears to be pulling back some troops from the Ukraine border, but he does not know what that means.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said even though Russia is removing a small portion of troops from the border, Russian President Vladimir Putin is a ‘thug.’

“We don’t know if that’s an indicator of good things or not. I’m heading out at the end of this week to Munich (Germany). There’s a conference that’s primarily focused on Europe to talk about the security picture, and it will be a good time to measure how seriously our allies are taking this. And I think they’re taking it seriously.”

Besides the slight drawback, Senator Durbin said President Putin has enough troops amassed the border to launch a full-scale attack.

“If Putin launched a land invasion of Ukraine, which he’s fully capable of; he’s got all the troops and equipment he needs to do it – if he does it, it’ll be the biggest land war in Europe since World War II.”

During a speech on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said the U.S. stands at the ready to defend NATO members as the crisis intensifies with Russia.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].