The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on June 18 held hearings on Ukraine’s progress five years after the Revolution of Dignity and Russia’s malicious activity.

The US State Department special representative Kurt Volker attended the meeting of the Senate Committee. In his address to the committee, Volker said that nothing was optimistic about Russia.

“Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, Ukraine, Georgia – nothing is positive. The situation is dangerous and will become worse if we do not speak to Russia. We should do two things – continue pressuring Russia and talk to Russia due to the seriousness of facing problems,” Volker stated.

The former US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, director of the Global Democracy and Emerging Technology Project at the Brookings Institute, Alina Polyakova, and the Heritage Foundation representative, James Carafano, also addressed the meeting.

John Herbst stressed on threats coming from Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Unfortunately, President Putin endangers the world order. He is trying to expand his sphere of influence on Russia’s neighborhood. He tries to weaken NATO, EU and the US. Putin started two wars – against Georgia in 2008 and against Ukraine in 2014. It is in the vital interest of the US to stop the Kremlin’s revisionism,” Herbst said.

Alina Polyakova talked about the creeping occupation of Georgian territories by Russia. “We see a slow creep almost on a daily basis of that contact line,” Polyakova said.