“I know that that’s a tough call and I know that we don’t want to hurt our own economy, but what are the consequences of Vladimir Putin just being able to act?” McCain, a Republican who advocates military assistance for the Ukraine, said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” this weekend.

Such a move likely would come through formal sanctions rather than political pressure on individual corporations, McCain said, and “would only be considered” if Putin “went much further.”

In addition to GE and Exxon-Mobil Corp., the companies with the largest business interest in Russia include Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and PepsiCo Inc.