(Radio Iowa) – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst says she joins President Trump in calling on Russia’s president to stop “the bloodbath” in Ukraine. Trump and Putin are set to meet Friday.

“I don’t want to see Ukraine lose land. That may happen, but the war needs to end,” Ernst said this afternoon. “We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Think about the children. it just needs to end, but it needs to end favorably for Ukraine and they need to know that Russia is not going to keep invading them.”

Ernst, as a college student, went on an agricultural exchange to Ukraine in 1989. Ernst met and has kept in touch with a woman in Ukraine she calls her “little sister.”

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) speaks during the Iowa State Fair this past weekend (Radio Iowa photo)

“She is o.k.,” Ernst said. “Life is very, very hard in Ukraine.”

Ernst was at the Iowa State Fair today and briefly spoke with reporters — about 24 hours after U.S. Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins hinted some USDA jobs in Washington, D.C. could be moved to Iowa.

Rollins has already said 2600 USDA positions currently based in Washington are shifting to “hubs” in five other states. Ernst said having one hub nearby in Kansas City is “great,” but she said Iowa needs to be one of the USDA hubs. “I would love to see some of those offices here in Iowa because literally Iowa feeds and fuels the world and I think we should have that representation here,” Ernst said.

During President Trump’s first term, Ernst proposed moving 30% of USDA positions based in Washington to other locations. The current USDA reorganization calls for moving over half of D.C. based USDA jobs to either Indianapolis, North Carolina, Kansas City, Colorado or Utah.