U.S. Sem. Jeanne Shaheen (AP photo)

MANCHESTER – New Hampshire U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan are optimistic that the sanctions against Russia will wear down Vladimir Putin and ultimately result in his abandoning the invasion of Ukraine that has rallied the world’s democracies against him.

Shaheen and Hassan spoke Friday morning at a meeting held by the New Hampshire Commerce Corridor at Saint Anselm College in Manchester to update business leaders to discuss infrastructure funding and how it would help subsidize projects in Southern New Hampshire.

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Shaheen, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, said the price of trying to rebuff Putin is reflected in the toll the conflict is already taking on the global economy generally and in the United State specifically.

“We’re already seeing that the gas pump,” Shaheen said. ” … We need to think about the fact that we’re all going to be asked to sacrifice at this moment.”

Shaheen said the conflict in Ukraine echoes historic battles that ultimately proved to be turning points.

“This is a moment very much like the fall of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall. The world comes together and looks at the choice we have for our futures. We see that juxtaposed very clearly in Ukraine right now, where we have an aspiring democracy. And we have all been so inspired by the courage of the Ukrainian people as they stand up to try to determine their own future. They want freedom. They look to the West and they want to be part of Europe.

“Opposing that is Russia and Vladimir Putin, in a dictatorship where people are arrested because they demonstrate, where all of the free media has been shutdown, where people don’t have freedom. We see Russians fleeing the country.”

“I was raised by a World War II veteran. My dad fought in the Battle of the Bulge,” Hassan said. “There are a lot of lessons he drew from that and he worked hard to pass them on to his three kids.

“One of them is that the United States can do anything that it sets its mind to, including freeing the world from a fascist dictator. Another lesson was the importance of standing for freedom. Dad would say to us at the breakfast table, ‘What are you guys going to do for freedom today?’

“That was his way of pointing out that in a democracy it’s up to each and every one of us to (protect freedom everywhere).

“This is a moment in time when we really do need to be standing with not only the people of Ukraine but with democracies everywhere, because the other lesson my father wanted to make sure his children knew is that if you appease a dictator early, he will keep going. If Ukraine isn’t safe from Putin nobody is safe from Putin.”