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UKRAINE
Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I thank the distinguished majority leader for working with the distinguished minority leader and with Senator Graham for bringing this important legislation to the floor tonight.
It says what many of us have been saying for a long time and which I wish the President of the United States, our Commander in Chief, would explicitly say tonight or tomorrow: that Vladimir Putin is a serial war criminal and that he should be investigated by the war crimes authorities internationally, brought to justice, and made to pay not only for his genocide and war crimes of the last 2\1/2\ weeks but also for Aleppo and Grozny and the tens of thousands--tens of thousands--of innocent civilians that he has killed by his desires out of some other century to conquer his neighbors.
I was mentioning 1938 and 1939. When Hitler went into the Sudetenland, he told naive Western governments: That will be the end of it. If we get that, we will have peace in our time.
And some leaders of the allies were convinced that that was true.
Vladimir Putin hasn't even said he is going to stop with Ukraine. So who in the world thinks that if he gets away with this, he will stop there? I don't believe he will, and here is why: Not only Aleppo, not only Grozny, but this is a man who, without question, poisons his political opponents. When they leave the country to get medical treatment, he causes them to be charged for breaking the terms of their parole and puts them in prison. That is his political opponent, Mr. Navalny, who had the temerity to be a candidate for President against Mr. Putin.
We are talking about the Vladimir Putin who authorizes the assassination of former members of the Russian Government because they have the temerity to oppose him. We are talking about the very same person in Vladimir Putin who jails persons for years and years who dare to oppose him or disagree with him publicly, who invents enormous lies and gets some people even in the West to believe it when he broadcasts the enormous lies through his monopoly of the media.
This man can be stopped in this Ukrainian war, and we are going to hear tomorrow morning from a courageous leader who has risen beyond the expectations of so many people in the free world, President Zelenskyy, and I intend to be there along with my colleagues wishing him the best.
I think I can say for our delegation that we might have nuances on how these things can be done, but we are united on ideas, like getting the Polish MiGs somehow into the hands of the Ukrainian fighter pilots who can then use them to win the war, the equipment from other NATO countries and European countries enhancing Ukraine's air defense, and sending more troops to harden the borders and the eastern flank of our NATO Allies.
I would say to the President of the United States: Mr. Biden, you have been too risk averse, too late from time to time, from step to step on all of the sanctions that we have needed, on the delivery of weapons.
We brought the administration along, but they have been a day late or a couple of days late or a week late. It is time for us to show international leadership on this. Even today, almost 3 weeks into the war, we have not yet dropped the full load of sanctions on Russia. We need to do that, and I call on the President and the administration to listen to those of us who were just in Eastern Europe.
History shows that weakness breeds war, instead of pacifying tyrants, weakness emboldens tyrants like Vladimir Putin. The good news is that with the help of NATO and Western arms, the Ukrainian military has defied all expectations. The intelligence reports that we have heard on the public media--this is nothing secret--was that in 3 or 4 days the Ukrainian military would be overrun by this vast Russian military behemoth.
That has not happened, in fact. These people, defending their homeland, defending their country, through the leadership of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have shown courage. They refuse to flee, and they have rallied the American people and the entire world in a lesson of leadership.
If President Zelenskyy survives until the morning, I will be cheering him from Capitol Hill on his remarks, just as the British Parliament did last week. This war is far from over. Suffering and dying refugees will continue every day, and I call on President Biden to recognize that Vladimir Putin is not simply at war with Ukraine, but they are at war with the entire free world, and this is our best opportunity to stop him. Our Baltic allies in NATO understand this. They know they can be next on Putin's kill list.
Now is our moment to make sure this is the last time that Putin and his band of war criminals invade a sovereign country. We watched it happen with the Transnistria. We watched it happen with the Republic of Georgia, in South Ossetia, and in Abkhazia. We watched it happen with the Donbas and with Crimea.
It is time to stop Vladimir Putin's expansionism. We should be enabling the Ukrainians to defend their own airspace, and we have not yet done all we can do. We need to be creative, but we need to take calculated risks because the future of the rules-based world order is at stake.
Western deterrence has so far failed, and now Putin is thinking he can succeed in shredding the rule book of the post-Cold War international order. It is up to us, and it is up to our Commander In Chief to restore faith in that order and to protect the free world.
And I am glad to be joined on the floor with my friend the distinguished senior Senator from Connecticut and was honored to join him and our other colleagues on the trip this last weekend to Eastern Europe.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I want to thank my really distinguished and able colleague and friend from Ohio, Senator Portman, and Senator Wicker, and also Senator Klobuchar, who accompanied us on this trip and enabled us to be so much more effective because of her very perceptive and insightful wisdom on these topics and her experience with the issues that we confronted, and a special thanks to Senator Portman for so ably organizing us and also to enable us to meet with senior members of the Polish Government, our own Ambassador, Mark Brzezinski, who is doing such a great job there, along with his team at the embassy, the brave men and women of the 82nd Airborne Division and, heartbreakingly, the women and children who are fleeing Ukraine with nothing more than what they could carry on their backs.
I want to thank, as well, Senator Schumer for bringing to the floor this resolution, and Senator Graham for his leadership. This resolution is a very powerful and compelling message to the world that the United States will stand strongly with the people of Ukraine against this brutal, insidious invasion by Vladimir Putin and Russia.
And, tomorrow, we will hear from President Zelenskyy, whose passionate and powerful plea for action will no doubt elicit more words of support. But we need more than words now. We need more than declarations of support. We need action--action that will make a difference on the battlefield. And let me just say very bluntly and simply: The Ukrainian resistance has proved to be more courageous, resilient, tough, and effective than Vladimir Putin ever imagined.
It has become the wonder and admiration of the world. It is not only their trained army, it is the men and women who took to the streets and the fields using weapons that we have supplied--the Stinger and Javelin missiles--to hit Russia's most advanced weapons system, their aircraft, as well as their tanks, and take them out.
If the Ukrainian people have a fair fight on the ground, they will win. They will drive Russia out of their precious land. But right now there is no fair fight. Right now, in the skies, Putin dominates. He has the aircraft, the missiles, to do insidious damage and to wound, damage, and destroy the Ukrainian ground forces.
And he was using that air superiority with consummate recklessness while we were in Poland. Just hours before we visited the border crossing at Korczowa, 30 of his missiles rained down on a training center in Yavoriv, 12 miles away. Let me repeat: 12 miles away from that border crossing. The Polish authorities there told us the ground shook with the tremor of those bombs hitting a training center just 12 miles from the Polish border.
Vladimir Putin was literally playing with fire. One of those missiles going astray into Poland could have triggered dramatic escalation, nuclear confrontation, and destruction of unknown magnitude.
Vladimir Putin is recklessly taking this fight westward in Ukraine, to the very border, the very doorstep of a NATO ally that we have an obligation to defend. And part of our trip was to visit with the 82nd Airborne--so impressive, these young men and women, in their intelligence, as well as their dedication and bravery. They are holding the line. More and more of them are there. And they are also enabling support for Ukraine in the kind of arms--Stingers and Javelins--that are needed.
But we must do more than what we are doing now. And in that respect, I join my colleagues. We have a common message. I personally appreciate what the administration has done in its providing support--those Javelin and Stinger missiles, the ammunition, night goggles, drone spare parts and more--but we must do more to counter that air superiority, the dominance in Putin's missiles and jet fighters.
I personally believe that we should provide more aircraft, the jet fighters that President Zelenskyy has desperately requested. But I also think there are tools that we can provide: anti-air batteries to bring down the planes and the missiles, defense mechanisms that Vladimir Putin cannot call escalatory under any possible definition, and, likewise, means of defense that the people of Ukraine desperately need and deserve to successfully defend.
There is no way any of these weapon systems are offensive. They are defensive, whether it is planes, Stinger and Javelin missiles, drones--
all of it is to defend their country and do it effectively and have a fair fight on the ground against Putin's air dominance.
We saw, heartrendingly, women and children coming from that bombing in Yavoriv at the border crossing. Literally, we visited with them, spoke with them, saw and heard the grief and misery, the tragedy and trauma that they are enduring.
Almost all were women and children because the men have stayed to fight, and they brought with them bags of clothing, their pets, stuffed animals--all they could carry but no more--facing a future of total uncertainty, not knowing when, if at all, they would return, and when, if at all, they would see their husbands, brothers, sons who were left to fight.
We must make sure that Ukraine stays in that fight, and we can do it if we raise our commitment.
I appreciate what the administration has done in its skillful use of public intelligence, its uniting of our allies, its adroit rallying of America, but now is the time to do more, and it must be done urgently. The time is now. Days, weeks--not on our side. Time works against us the longer we allow Putin to command the skies in the way that he does now, the longer innocent people will be slaughtered in their homes, in hospital, in maternity wards, and the longer the world will be put at risk of another attack on a nuclear facility that could spread radioactive contamination throughout the country and even through Europe.
The trauma and terror on the faces of those women and children, the tears that we saw, will stay with me forever. I was reminded of my own family, my dad who came to this country in 1935 to escape the Holocaust. He, too, came with not much more than the shirt on his back. He spoke virtually no English. He knew no one. He brought his entire family--his immediate family, but he lost much of his other family.
America has always been a nation of immigrants and refugees, and we have always spread our generosity to them, and now, likewise, in Connecticut we see the Ukrainian-American community providing clothing and blankets, donations, along with the Polish-American community. Indeed, throughout the State of Connecticut and throughout the country, America's hearts are going out to these refugees in this humanitarian crisis. That is what we do in America.
That is what we saw, in fact, Americans and others doing at the World Central Kitchen in the reception area that we visited. My colleagues and I served chicken, vegetables, rice, potatoes for a couple more hours to these refugees, and we had, I think, a tremendously uplifting experience.
I mention it because, as Senator Portman has said so eloquently, even in the midst of this evil, we saw good in that team at the World Central Kitchen; in the 82nd Airborne; our men and women in uniform; and the Embassy staff who were willing to risk their lives in Kyiv and stay in Lviv and finally move from Lviv to Warsaw; our Foreign Service; our men and women in uniform; and of course the people of Poland who have welcomed these refugees, literally welcomed them into their homes, 2 million of them, 10 percent or more of the population of Warsaw alone--an effort of unprecedented magnitude in recent history.
And as we returned home, so grateful for the good in those people, it was brought on me again to realize that this invasion was a war of choice. That evil in Moscow is one man.
I still believe the Russian people, if they knew what was going on in Ukraine, would throw him out. That is not to say that he should be assassinated or that he should be attacked.
I believe that if there were a democratic process with full and fair information in Russia, there is no way that Vladimir Putin would survive a democracy.
And so I think we must continue to tighten the economic sanctions to bring that pain home to the Russians to make them feel the hurt they have inflicted on others and to know that they have a responsibility to end this conflict.
They must do more, as we must do more, and our action must tighten and broaden economic sanctions to stop Vladimir Putin from continuing to reap the revenue of sales of oil and gas.
I commend the administration for stopping importation of Russian oil and gas to this country, but other Western countries continue to do it and other countries around the world, and therefore I am partnering in a measure with Senator Blackburn of Tennessee, urging the President to work with our allies to halt Russia's ability to sell its oil and gas on Western markets, to stop the connection of all Russian banks to the SWIFT financial system, which is the means for him to reap that revenue.
If he is cut off from it, his ability to sell that oil and gas and reap the revenue and finance, his war machine is broken.
And a bill--a second measure--introduced today with Senators Whitehouse, Graham, and my colleague from Mississippi Senator Wicker, provides the President with authority to seize and sell all of the superyachts, the jets, mansions, and luxury possessions of Putin's criminal kleptocracy as well as his cronies, his family, and others. These ill-begotten gains will be used to support Ukrainian freedom fighters, rebuild Ukraine, and provide humanitarian assistance to those refugees we saw escaping.
I have no illusions that Putin can be forced right away to the negotiating table, but these measures will eventually force him to respond.
We must give the people of Ukraine a fair fight. We must act immediately to provide them with the support they need to stop Putin's war in the air. Much as Winston Churchill rallied Britain in the Battle of Britain to survive and resolve at the beginning of World War II in the Battle of Britain to resist Hitler's onslaught from the air, so, too, the people of Ukraine are fighting their battle, and we must respond with action. Our security is at peril. Our defense is at risk. The economic implications are perilous, and the world order is threatened.
This time is a turning point, and we must enable Ukraine to chart its own course to remain as a free and sovereign nation and to have a fair fight.
I yield the floor, and I yield back to my colleague from Mississippi.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. The Senator from Connecticut is correct to commend the massive efforts to prevent the humanitarian suffering in Ukraine and in Poland.
The dozens of nongovernmental organizations, such as the World Food Kitchen, the USAID Agency, a part of our Federal Government, the World Food Programme, the diplomatic corps, both of the United States and our allies, and certainly our American military, the 82nd Airborne.
But let me conclude by making this profoundly important point: What we have heard tonight on both sides of the aisle are bipartisan calls for us to do more.
In this system that we have under our Constitution, we have one Commander in Chief at a time, and we have heard from Democrats and Republicans tonight on the floor of the U.S. Senate that we need to do more. This administration needs to do more. This Commander in Chief can do more and needs to do more to help this small country preserve their freedom, to win against this war criminal and his unprovoked aggression, and to preserve the international order that has governed civilized nations for decades and decades.
I hope the administration is hearing the bipartisan message that we bring back from our observations and that we are hearing from our constituents.
I yield back to my dear friend from Ohio.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, first I want to say that I appreciate my colleagues being on the floor tonight and their really moving statements about the crisis in Ukraine and the atrocities that are being committed there.
And I think what you did tonight is you added a lot of texture and perspective to the resolution that just passed this body by a unanimous vote. Nobody objected. We are now on record here in this body with a strong statement of support for Ukraine and strong opposition to the atrocities being committed and our commitment to do more.
So, again, I appreciated being with you in Poland, and I appreciated your coming to the floor tonight.
I am going to pick up where I had left off and talk a little more about what we can do because that is the real question that faces us here in the U.S. Senate.
We talked a lot about military assistance tonight, and we, again, I think, had a consensus among us as to what we need to do to help the Ukrainians protect themselves, particularly from the aerial assault that they are under.
I know we also have another colleague who couldn't be here on the floor because of scheduling concerns, as I said earlier, Senator Klobuchar, but she will be making a statement for the record that will go along with our statements tonight. I look forward to seeing that.
The four of us got in at about midnight last night, and we come back with a heavy heart but also lots of advice for our government as to how we can do more.
On the humanitarian side, the United States has got a key role to play as well, not just on military assistance but on ensuring that people who are fleeing this conflict and people internally displaced have the help they need.
We support our European partners who have opened their homes, as I said earlier, and their borders to Ukrainian refugees. In fact, they have provided a 3-year visa, in essence, to Ukrainians in the European Union and permission to work, and this is, I think, a strong signal of the special relationship that the countries of the EU feel toward Ukraine, which I hope someday will be a member of the European Union, as do they.
Congress just passed some immediate help for Ukraine. It was in legislation called the Omnibus appropriations bill a few days ago. That will help AID here in the United States and other organizations around the world be able to help with these refugees and help those Ukrainians who are trapped in cities under siege. To me this is the No. 1 priority right now.
Cities like Mariupol--you probably read that people have been without food and water for days--for days. There was a child--a girl, apparently--who died of dehydration recently, and others are going to be finding themselves in an impossible situation, not knowing where their next meal may come from. So we need to help them, particularly in these cities in the east and the south of the country that are under such terrible siege and being surrounded.
This is an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, and it is being caused by Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine--Vladimir Putin's war and Russia's war. The actions that they have undertaken have created the largest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II. That is already. By the way, I favor seizing, rather than freezing, the assets of Kremlin officials and oligarchs and then providing those proceeds to the refugees. Doesn't that make sense?
So when a billionaire has his assets frozen, it is one thing; but when they are seized, as some countries have done--France, Germany--the United States needs to step up and do that as well. We should be leading on this, not following. That is another thing that we can do to help get proceeds to help with the humanitarian efforts.
But I also have a message tonight to those Russian officials and to the Russian commanders on the ground, which is that you have a choice to make. You can stop this atrocity. You can refuse the orders to kill innocent civilians. You can stop this atrocity that has already taken the lives of thousands of civilians--men, women and children, your neighbors--your neighbors--some with family connections to Russia, who want nothing more than just to live in peace. You can stop this atrocity. Disobey the orders. The world is watching, and the war crimes are being recorded. You have a choice.
On sanctions: We talked a little bit about this earlier tonight, but we need more and faster sanctions. We need to remove all Russian banks from their access to the global financial system. Russia must be financially cut off from the rest of the world, or it won't work. We have already seen the pain that we can inflict using a portion of our sanction authority. We need to do more.
We need to exert maximum pressure to ensure no money can be sent to Russia to fund the war effort. This is one reason it was so important that we finally stopped the importation of Russian oil and gas. Why would we want to send $40- or $50 million a day, which we were sending to Russia to be used for the war machine.
But we can implement full blocking sanctions on all Russian banks, and we can ensure that energy transactions are not exempt from these sanctions. That is very important, because right now there are some exemptions for energy.
Russia should not use its oil profits to kill innocent Ukrainians. That should be our principle. We should not allow money to flow down like water in cracks in the pavement. We should pass legislation to ensure that these funds stop--and not by June 24, which is in the sanctions that the administration has put forward, but now--blocking sanctions now, not for the energy sector transactions on June 24. That is too long.
I think we should move ahead with legislation to cut off most-
favored-nation treatment. This is the permanent trade relationship with Russia we granted back in 2012, bringing them into the World Trade Organization. Access to the U.S. market is a privilege, not a right. And we should not only ensure that we are not giving Russia that privilege of access to our markets--lower tariffs of all kinds of products, including oil and gas--but also that other countries of the world follow suit. That way it would be much more effective.
But I would like to go beyond most-favored-nation treatment tonight and suggest that we also suspend our tax treaty with Russia. Why would we want to have a tax treaty that provides tax benefits to Russian businesses? Again, our principle there could be no tax breaks for invaders. That would make more sense.
We also need to sanction the Russian energy sector with currency and blocking sanctions, as I said, right now--not June 24. I know this is more difficult on the Europeans who are more dependent on Russia for energy, but there are many steps the United States can take to help expand energy production here at home and help our allies abroad.
I met with someone today who is trying to set up LNG terminals in places like Germany and also Ireland and other countries to bring liquefied natural gas to Europe. We have plenty of natural gas in this country. We are blessed with it. We should use it to help our allies.
Finally, I would like to advocate for a similar approach to how we designated Iranian entities in 2018, when we left the JCPOA. We did not issue sanctions or waivers to European companies that continued to do business with Iran's economy. We forced those companies to leave Iran's market, even at the displeasure of some of those governments. The bottom line: It can't be business as usual.
There is a popular Ukrainian national rallying cry, ``Slava Ukraini!'' When translated into English, it means ``Glory to Ukraine.''
``Slava Ukraini.''
There is a response to that rallying cry, which is ``Glory to the Heroes.'' ``Heroiam Slava.'' So ``Slava Ukraini'' and in response,
``Heroiam Slava.''
And even in these dark times, there are many heroes. While we heard firsthand about the worst of humanity represented by the brutal bombings of civilian targets, we also saw the best of humanity at work. And we saw acts of kindness and generosity: Polish border guards helping carry suitcases of mothers who were overwhelmed as they carried young children in their arms, fleeing from the only home they have ever known; volunteers at the reception center where they provided healthcare and lodging and served thousands of meals a day to frightened and bewildered families who were waiting to move on to homes that generous Poles, Germans, and others in the EU had opened up for them.
In the midst of this atrocity, there are so many heroes to glorify in Ukraine. Yes, glory to the heroes: the brave border guards on Snake Island; the grandmother bravely walking up to Russian soldiers and handing them sunflower seeds, saying: If you don't leave, this is so that something beautiful will grow on your grave; the courageous President of Ukraine who when asked by western countries if they could help him escape, responded simply: ``I need ammunition, not a ride.''
``I need ammunition, not a ride.''
President Zelenskyy's bravery and resilience has been an inspiration to Ukrainians and freedom-loving people everywhere. Tomorrow, he will be here virtually in a joint session of Congress to talk to all of us, and I look forward to it.
Glory to the everyday heroes who are caring for the wounded, feeding desperate families huddling in basements and subway stations, glory to the professional soldiers and citizens alike who have taken up arms and are putting their lives on the line to defend their beloved homeland in the cause of freedom, against great odds. Glory to the heroes. Heroiam Slava. Godspeed to them in their battle for a free and independent Ukraine.
Some may ask--and some of my colleagues here have asked me: Why does a Senator from Ohio get involved in Ukraine? Why do you care? Well, tens of thousands of Ukrainian Americans call Ohio home, as do hundreds of thousands of others who trace their family to that part of the world; and it is an honor to represent them and their values.
I stood together with a thousand fellow Ohioans at a prayer service and rallied for Ukraine 2 weeks ago in Parma, OH, just outside of Cleveland. We prayed for family and friends in Ukraine who are in harm's way. We prayed for the courageous Ukrainian troops and asked for God's wisdom and blessing on the duly elected Government of Ukraine and, of course, for the protection of President Zelenskyy.
Ohioans like Andy Futey and Marta Liscynesky are rallying support across our State and coordinating efforts to provide humanitarian relief to those in need in Ukraine and in neighboring European countries. They are heading up through the United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio a fund called the Fund to Aid Ukraine. I contributed to it. They do great work.
Two weeks ago, Sunday, I was honored to speak at an emotional rally in Washington, DC, much like the one in Parma, OH, only larger. Again, many Ohioans were there. And this past weekend on the border between Ukraine and Poland, Ohioans were there volunteering.
But even if I didn't have a single constituent of Ukrainian descent, I would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine because this fight is our fight. This is where, in our generation at this time, all freedom-loving people are called to defend what we hold dear.
Eight years ago, Ukrainians made a choice. They stood up to a corrupt Russian-backed government. They stood up for freedom, for free markets, for peace and prosperity, and for the rule of law. They looked to America, and they looked to the EU. They chose freedom over tyranny. They chose a democracy over an authoritarian regime. I was there in 2014, right after the Heavenly Hundred who stood up to the corrupt Russian-backed government were killed in what was called the Euromaidan or the Revolution of Dignity. I saw firsthand then the commitment the people of Ukraine had to freedom and independence, to charting their own course.
Right now, those friends in Ukraine need our help. We cannot let this call to action go unanswered. We cannot sit by and watch as innocent civilians are brutally killed.
America and our allies must stand up for freedom, and the world is watching. Our friends are watching. Our adversaries are watching. We must show them that America stands with Ukraine.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I want to add one more quotation to the very stirring and powerful words that my colleague from Ohio has just given us.
Decades ago, President John F. Kennedy went to Berlin, and in a statement of resolve and commitment that mobilized the world, he said then, ``I am a Berliner.'' And he spoke for America.
Today, we are all Ukrainians. Just as he said that he, as an American, was a Berliner, today, we are Ukrainian.
My colleague from Ohio is absolutely right that this fight is ours and there are actions we can take--not just words--that will make a difference: actions that should not and will not involve American troops or an escalatory response, actions that will be in the best tradition of the United States, going back to our own Revolution when we overcame a more massive British force. We didn't need to defeat them; we simply needed to survive. And by surviving, George Washington understood that the British would be defeated.
And so we can enable resilience and resolve of the Ukrainian people to defeat the Russians, if we give them what we need, if we give them more of what we have been giving them. And today, truly, this bell tolls for us; and it is the world's fight, not just the Ukrainians'.
I thank my friend and fellow Senator from Ohio for leading us on this trip, and I hope that our colleagues, a few of them may have heard us tonight at this hour--but I hope they will come to the floor and that we will continue this conversation because it is a debate that really unites all of us across the aisle, as did the resolution which passed overwhelmingly.
I yield the floor.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 46
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