Hillary Clinton brings warnings on Russia, human rights to Liberal convention

Clinton was sharing a stage with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for a wide-ranging discussion that heavily focused on the threats to democracy and human rights.

Russia’s current invasion in Ukraine happened because the world didn’t do enough to respond when they did it before, former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Friday in Ottawa.

And failing to stop Russia now would also be “disastrous in terms of unleashing Chinese aggression,” she said.

“It is in our interest to stop them,” Clinton said, as a keynote speaker at the Liberal policy convention in Ottawa.

Clinton was sharing a stage with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for a wide-ranging discussion that heavily focused on the threats to democracy and human rights in both Canada and the United States.

Clinton said when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, “we all sat him down, we gave speeches about it.”

“We, you know, expressed our absolute opposition, but nobody really did much. Think of the lesson Putin took from that.”

Then he invaded Ukraine the first time in 2014, “and again it was ‘Oh my gosh, we wish he wouldn’t do, it’s really fortunate, but we’ve got other things we’ve got to focus on, other places that we have to pay attention to.”’

“And the message Putin took from that was that he can get away with invading other countries and interfere with elections and buy his way to influence all in his great quest to restore Russian greatness.”