Less than a week after returning from the Munich Security Conference in Germany, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama on Wednesday gave a sobering assessment of the war in Ukraine.

“What you see on TV is just a little bit of what is really happening,” Tuberville said in a speech to about 600 business and community leaders in Huntsville – an audience that included defense contractors keenly tuned to the events in eastern Europe.

“Not to get into the weeds but it’s a tough fight,” the senator continued. “Tens of thousands of people are losing their lives. I wish we weren’t there in this fight.”

Related: $6 billion in aid to Ukraine flows through Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal

That’s not to say Tuberville is sympathetic to the Russian invasion or its president, Vladimir Putin.

“I think Putin is a murderer,” Tuberville said. “He’s a thug. He’s a guy who never should have done what he’s done.”

The difficult reality for America, Tuberville said, is that it is involved in the war – in providing money and war materiel to Ukraine – to the extent that extraction at this point is difficult to envision.

“We’re in it,” Tuberville said. “I just don’t know how we’re going to get out of it.”

The issue echoes of the problems that plagued U.S. military forces in Afghanistan that lasted for more than 20 years before the final withdrawal in 2021. A suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members and the Afghan government collapsed immediately after the withdrawal began. The process of the Afghanistan withdrawal became a long-running issue in Washington before its chaotic conclusion that has widely been described as a negative turning point for the Biden presidency.

On the campaign trail last year prior to being elected, Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama said Biden demonstrated “weakness” in the Afghanistan withdrawal.

The U.S. has gradually stepped up its support of Ukraine as it defends itself against the Russian invasion that began in February 2022. Congress approved about $113 billion in economic, humanitarian and military spending in 2022, The Associated Press reported last week.

That support in Congress, however, is wavering.

“It’s a mess, to be honest,” Tuberville said in speaking to reporters before his speech. “I mean, I can’t explain it any more than that. We’re in tough times in Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have lost upwards of 200,000 people. So has Russia. A lot of people have died because of this conflict. We’re getting more and more involved from a proxy standpoint. (Ukraine is) wanting more and more. This time last year, we weren’t going to get into tanks and things like that. But now we’re sending tanks. So is Germany. Germany is getting more involved.”

In his speech, Tuberville praised the resolve of Ukrainians while acknowledging it could prolong issues for the U.S.

“I don’t know how Ukraine is going to get out of it,” he said. “It’s like a junior high playing against a college football team. They don’t have the numbers. They don’t have the weapons but they’ve got the will to fight. And I’m proud we’re representing them to a point. Sooner later we’ll run to figure a way to, to work in and out of it.”

Tuberville also commended Huntsville’s defense community in its role assisting Ukraine. Officials from Army Materiel Command, the four-star command headquartered at Redstone Arsenal, said in December it has handled almost $7 billion in weapons and supplies for Ukraine since the invasion began.

“You are playing a big role,” Tuberville said. “A lot of you in here are defense contractors and from Redstone Materiel Command, you’re playing a big role in what’s going on in Ukraine. We’ll see what happens. Hopefully by the spring, we come up with a solution to this.”