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Floor Speech
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I couldn't agree more with the comments of my colleague Senator Portman from Ohio.
We are here on the floor today to convey strong bipartisan opposition that exists in this Senate to Vladimir Putin's unprovoked aggression against our partner Ukraine.
Now, like everyone in this body, I have been closely following the deteriorating political crisis that has been fabricated by Russia because, as Senator Portman says, Ukraine has always been defensive. It has not been offensive going against Russia, but Russia intends to further undermine and threaten Ukraine's sovereignty.
This Senate has a long history of supporting an independent and democratic Ukraine. Since Russia's initial invasion in 2014, Congress has provided more than $2.7 billion in security assistance and supported its government in advancing critical reforms to help Ukraine on its journey to greater Euro-Atlantic integration.
I am proud to have been involved in a number of those bipartisan efforts to support Ukraine. As Senator Portman said, last month, we traveled with a bipartisan delegation of seven Senators--four Democrats and three Republicans--to meet with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and other officials. We met with his national security team to discuss the Russian threat and how the United States can help our Ukrainian friends.
The message from the Ukrainians was clear. They see their future in partnership with the West. They share our democratic values, and their people are proud of their hard-won independence.
So it is worth asking, if Ukraine has made its sovereign wish clear that it wants a future with Europe, why does Putin have more than 130,000 troops at its border?
As Senator Portman pointed out so well, it is not just its eastern border with Russia; it is its northern border with Belarus. So it has been said--but I think it is worth repeating--that this unprecedented Russian threat to Ukraine's sovereignty is on Putin. It is on no one else. He has designed this crisis to advance his own revanchist agenda. He wants to reconstruct the Soviet Union and recreate his own sphere of interest, and he wrongfully sees Ukraine as part of this authoritarian future.
But make no mistake, this isn't just about Ukraine. Putin wants to diminish U.S. presence in Europe and to rewrite the European security order for his benefit and in blatant disregard for previous international agreements and treaties that Russia has signed. Senator Portman talked about the Budapest Memorandum. There have been other efforts to try and reduce tensions between Russia and Ukraine by Europe, but Putin has basically thumbed his nose at all of those efforts. He has shown repeated attempts to subvert democratic institutions in the United States, to attack our infrastructure, and to compromise the sovereignty of our allies around the globe.
This is why what happens in Ukraine matters here in the United States. It is important that we stand up for our values; it is important that we stand up to protect our national security; and it is critical that we continue to uphold and protect the transatlantic security order that has given us peace and prosperity for over 70 years, since the end of World War II.
As Putin tries to dismantle and divide the very alliance that has kept us safe for more than 70 years, it is all the more important that we strengthen our resolve through a strong message of unbreakable unity.
It is critical that the Senate take up and pass bipartisan legislation that shows our support for Ukraine and our opposition to Russia and what Putin is doing. I have been working toward this goal. I especially want to commend Senator Portman for his work and leadership because he has also been working toward this goal. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and ranking member, Senators Menendez and Risch, continue their efforts to find a bipartisan path forward. And I am sure Senator Portman would agree with me that when we say we are committed to doing our part to forge a path forward on this legislation, we mean that is what we want to do; that this is an opportunity for us to show the rest of the world that we are united.
That is why we are here today, to send a strong bipartisan message to Putin, to Ukraine, and to our allies. We must lead by example and convey, as we have done through our Ukrainian partners and our transatlantic allies, that we must not leave any space for Putin to sow further discord.
Therefore, the Senate doesn't really have a choice; we must send a message of strong, unequivocal bipartisan resolve. For many years, Senator Portman and I and others in the Ukraine Caucus have worked closely to support the Ukrainian people. We traveled to Kyiv to ensure the U.S. resolve for our Ukrainian partners was absolute. We teamed up to increase military assistance to Ukraine, and we have spoken to ensure, on the topic of Ukraine, that this Senate speaks with one bipartisan voice.
So today we stand united here on the floor of the Senate to send an unequivocal message to Putin: You will not divide the Senate; you will not divide the United States; and you will not divide the transatlantic alliance.
Diplomacy remains an option, I hope, to deescalate this situation and to pursue a peaceful resolution, but if Putin decides to further invade Ukraine, he will only succeed in uniting us all--Democrats, Republicans, Americans, and the transatlantic alliance--in sending a message of unmistakable resolve against his belligerence. I hope he chooses peace rather than war, but we plan to be ready.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Would my colleague yield for a question?
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Because as he points out, if Putin does invade Ukraine, as he said, it would be devastating for Ukraine, for those of us who believe in freedom, and the right of each individual country to determine their own future; but this would also be the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II; is that correct?
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Absolutely.
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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Certainly, the Presiding Officer would agree with me that in the Democratic caucus we are also united with the Republican caucus in wanting to support Ukraine to ensure that they can determine their own future and to hold Vladimir Putin accountable.
As you say, hopefully, diplomacy will win out, and there will be some way in which we can work with Vladimir Putin to address some of his concerns. We are certainly not going to allow Putin and Russia to determine Ukraine's future--to say to Ukraine ``You can't join NATO'' or to say to Europe and NATO ``You can't expand into Europe if countries want to join.'' Hopefully, he will choose a path that is going to be good not just for Europe and the United States and Ukraine but for Russia, because, as the German Chancellor said to us last week when he met with a number of Senators: In the long run, this will not be good for Russia--for its energy future--because Europe is going to get off Russian energy a lot faster if Russia invades Ukraine, and it is not going to be good for Russia's standing either in Europe or in the world.
So, hopefully, Putin will choose the reasonable approach, which is that he will choose diplomacy and not choose war.
It is our job--that of the transatlantic alliance and those of us here in Congress--to hold Putin accountable if he makes the wrong choice, to make sure that we put in place crippling sanctions, that we provide the assistance that Ukraine needs in fighting Russia, and that we make it clear to the world that the world order that we have defended for the last 70 years we are going to continue to defend.
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