again russian speakers in western ukraine. they have launched investigations into allegations of mass graves of russian speakers. what does that tell you? >> that's mr. putin's playbook. we have seen that before. propaganda and lies. he says it all the time. he's done it over and over and over again. he has an asymmetric arsenal and the attempts to bring down sovereign states such as ukraine. so it is totally false, but he does that in order to justify to his constituency that what he's doing is to protect the security of russians or russia itself. it is absolutely false, it is fabricated. it is part of a strategy to show why russia is incurring and trying to bring down the ukrainian government. >> and it is false. and the claims of genocide, but really quickly, senator, can you imagine a situation where putin is making a claim of genocide and then he chooses in the to