Taking Putin's Words and Deeds Seriously
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado (Mr. Buck) for this important time talking about the horrors that have been inflicted upon people by Vladimir Putin. Specifically, we know how much damage he has been causing to the people of Ukraine.
More than 1.7 million--in fact, I saw a graphic just before I came to the floor--2 million Ukrainians have been displaced, have been fleeing Ukraine for other countries nearby.
Over 2,000 civilians have been killed, according to reports. But, obviously, we don't know the extent of the damage and the carnage. Thirty-eight children have been killed that we know of, but there are probably more, and 70 wounded that we know of.
Madam Speaker, $10 billion in damages to Ukrainian infrastructure, probably far more than that; 200 schools, 34 hospitals, and 1,500 residential homes destroyed--these are the basic numbers just coming in. We know they are going to be far greater.
On Saturday, a family with two children, a teenage son and a daughter who appeared to be 8 years old, and several other civilians were killed by a Russian military strike at an evacuation crossing point in a Kyiv suburb as they were trying to flee Ukraine.
Ukraine has required men to stay to defend their country, forcing families to make the unthinkable decision. One Ukraine woman said: ``It is very hard to have your husband stay home. You have to choose: Save the kids or stay with him.''
I have heard from friends and read dozens of tragic stories in the past few days through friends of mine in Austin, Texas, who have gone to Ukraine to help people. I have been in touch, through them, with an orphanage in Kyiv with somewhere upward of 50 children, up to 14 infants, up near the suburbs of north Kyiv.
They are struggling. They are lacking food. They are lacking the materials to survive. They are trying to figure out how to get to a place where they can get to help.
We have actors on the ground trying to help them, but they can't get to them because of what Putin is doing and not really heeding the calls for helping people be able to get out of harm's way.
Right now, these children are completely helpless. A nurse from Lutsk in western Ukraine who fled to Poland said the decision on whether to stay or go was not instantaneous. When the Russian army first invaded eastern Ukraine, she and her husband decided to wait: ``We were hoping that the situation wouldn't develop into a full-scale invasion. But as hours passed, it became obvious that things were only getting worse.''
The next morning, she and her 2-year-old son, Tymi, got in a car and headed for Poland, where they waited 10 hours at the border. She said saying good-bye to their husband and father, who stayed in Ukraine to build barricades, was heartbreaking.
She and her son were hosted by a Polish family, Robert and Hana, an English language university instructor and a human resources supervisor, who live with their two children. They made it clear that their hospitality didn't have an end date.
Alex in Kyiv is helping his friends evacuate. Sergei in Rivne is setting up shelters for his community and providing food and supplies. Peter in Zhytomyr packed his car yesterday and is currently taking his neighbors to Poland.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Will the gentleman yield?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, we are seeing Putin's propaganda tactics, as we speak. The world is seeing it on full display. His regime is systematically shutting down the free flow of information surrounding this brutal war in Ukraine. The State run newspapers in Russia have been instructed to not use the words ``invasion'' or ``war.'' Just days ago, Putin's regime shut off Facebook access in the country.
Now, again, whatever Russians are able to see what we are saying on the floor, this is the truth. This is the truth of what Vladimir Putin is doing to the truth and the dissemination of information of what is happening in Russia, what is happening to the people of Ukraine, not the propaganda you're hearing in Russia.
Just days ago, Putin's regime shut off Facebook, as I said. The Russian newspaper translated as ``New Newspaper'' has a brave, freedom- loving editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov--he co-won last year's Nobel Peace Prize--who has been forced to remove all of the material on the newspaper's website related to Russia's aggression in the Ukraine.
Think about that. That is what is happening. This isn't new. It is his track record. He came to power because of a terrorist act that was directed at Russia's own people.
In 1999, three apartment buildings in Moscow, Dagestan, and Volgodonsk were bombed. Those bombings, allegedly the acts of Chechen terrorists, gave a pretext for going into Chechnya for a second war, thus solidifying support for Putin as head of the Security Council.
Since then, almost everyone who has raised questions about these bombings or has attempted to investigate the cause of these bombings has been kicked out of Russia, imprisoned, or murdered.
Those are the facts. That is who Putin is.
During his more than two decades of ruling Russia, Putin has displayed a callous disregard for human life. He has engaged in murderous attacks on his political opposition.
In 2004, the Putin regime poisoned Ukrainian Presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko.
In 2006, there was the polonium killing in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a defector from Russia.
In 2009, Sergei Magnitsky was taken into police custody, beaten, deprived of medical care, and he died in jail.
In 2013, Boris Berezovsky was found in his home in the United Kingdom dead. Berezovsky had long been a critic of Putin, accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, who had been poisoned in 2006.
In 2015, Boris Nemtsov was shot four times in the back just a short distance from the Kremlin. He was another critic of Putin.
And in 2017, the world was horrified by the daylight shooting of Denis Voronenkov, who was murdered in Kyiv after renouncing his Russian citizenship and criticizing Vladimir Putin. That is the truth of Putin's brutality.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. And how was he poisoned?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Is there any disagreement on the intelligence that this is what occurred at the hands of Vladimir Putin's orders?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Right.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Yes.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. That is exactly right. And I want to take 1 minute because it merits repeating because we are sitting here in the United States of America in the protection of our great Republic miles away from what is happening in Ukraine, and it bears repeating that there are two million Ukrainians right now fleeing Ukraine, fleeing their homes. We fortunately haven't had to experience that sort of thing.
But two million people right now are fleeing their homes, dads and husbands staying behind in Ukraine, families fleeing, seeking shelter, thousands killed, we don't know how many, children killed, billions of dollars of damage, destroying crops, destroying infrastructure, taking over nuclear power plants.
And I just got a text, literally as I am standing here, from my friends in Austin, Texas--from the wife whose husband is currently now in Ukraine trying to help people--talking about the orphanage I talked about in northern Kyiv. She says 51 kids are trapped; 51 kids trapped.
Do you have kids? People around here, many of us have kids. Fifty-one kids trapped after orphanage bombed and director killed. The director of the orphanage was killed. Running out of food. No heat or electricity. Cold front coming. Will freeze or starve if we can't get there soon. Fifteen infants. Special needs kids. Currently shelling of all civilian targets being perpetrated and carried out by Putin. The same Putin that killed a Ukrainian leader with nuclear poisoning.
This from my friend: We are pleading for someone to help us get to the children before it is too late. And we are trying. Anybody out there watching, we are trying to figure out how to get to this orphanage and get them to people who can help. But that is the product of Vladimir Putin. And if you are watching this, and if you are in Russia or if this clip gets to you and it isn't cut off by Putin and his thug leadership in Russia, this is the truth of Vladimir Putin. This is what he is doing to innocent people.
And he is lying to you that these children are being put up as somehow being a front and being put up to be put in harm's way. He is indiscriminately bombing. He is the cause of these children being in danger. He is the cause of this murder. He is the cause of thousands of people getting killed, millions getting displaced, billions in damage, and it is all because he is a thug and an autocrat, who is going after and killing innocent people.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, well, I appreciate my friend from Colorado's question. And I would note in your comparison as to our experience as Federal prosecutors, that there is no entity that is able to hold him to account in Russia because he is running the whole show as a dictator, and there is no free press.
In our country--as bad as the press can be--we at least hope that we can get the truth out through the vestiges of the First Amendment and the importance of the free press, no matter who is in the White House. Right?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Neither you nor I shied away from criticizing the former President of the United States, despite the fact he had an ``R'' after his name. Nor will we shy away from criticizing this President who has a ``D'' after his name. Why? Because we are Article I, and he is Article II.
And the Founders gave us a free press to say we are going to have the press holding all of us to account, and the separation of power so we can hold the President to account. There is none of that here.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. And the most important thing that we can do, in my opinion, is do what we are doing right here. And I hope all my colleagues will do this. And I hope everybody will unite. And I hope the American free press will unite, and the worldwide free press will unite, to call this out for what it is--a war criminal killing innocents for sheer power and for sheer determination of what he wants for his own agenda, not for any kind of honorable reasons in defending his homeland.
Whatever he is telling you and the people of Russia that this is somehow an honorable defense of Russia, it is not. He is lying to you. He is killing innocent people in the name of your homeland. And you need to know that. And you need to know the truth. And you need to see what he is doing to people.
And we, in this country, need to continue to do more. And I know we are here to talk about Putin, and we are here to talk about this situation of holding him accountable. And I don't want to get too partisan here, but our country should have been doing more sooner.
We should have been listening to Zelensky. I have heard a whole lot of applause lately for Zelensky from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. But where were we last July when he was asking for help with sanctions?
Where were my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when my former boss and my friend, Senator Ted Cruz, forced a vote in the Senate on Nord Stream 2?
MIA. Partisan vote: We are not going to continue sanctions on Nord Stream 2. We are going to go along with Biden's decision to stop sanctions on Nord Stream 2.
Well, what do you think happens when you allow Putin and Russia to have a complete control of the energy supply of Europe?
What do you think is going to happen when you empower a thug and a dictator? What do you think is going to happen?
And right now today, we have a complete refusal by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and frankly, too many colleagues on my side of the aisle, who refuse to say that we are, today, going to open up American energy, liquefied natural gas, oil, and produce it in this country to ensure that this man doesn't have the power to do what he is doing in Ukraine.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. How has the lawless authoritarian managed to regain his power? Well, I will tell you. Europe made themselves completely dependent on Russian energy.
And if you want a wake-up call and you want a warning shot in this country, Russia controls 40 percent of the EU's natural gas and 30 percent of its oil. Germany buys more gas from Russia than any other country.
They chose this. They chose fracking bans. They chose to shut down energy freedom in Western Europe. They chose to pursue a political climate ideology over national security and commonsense and energy for their citizenry. And now, they are beholden to Russia. And now, we have empowered Russia.
This stuff matters. Wars have been fought over these kinds of things, and we just empowered an autocrat to roll over the people of Ukraine because of the leadership of the Democrats on the other side of the aisle. And the people in this White House are pursuing climate ideology over national security; climate ideology over energy freedom; climate ideology over affordable gas; and the ability for the American people to thrive while empowering the people of Ukraine instead of a thug like Putin.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. You are exactly right. And tomorrow, we are going to be voting on a number of things. I got to be honest with you. I am sickened at what we are doing in this body. Instead of debating and voting here and having a serious discussion about how we should spend our assets to support Ukraine but be sensible about what we are doing in policies here, we are going to have a vote on banning Russian oil.
What good does it do to ban Russian oil if you are going to buy it from Venezuela or Iran?
Why don't we produce it here in the United States? It is cleaner and it is better. We should be doing that right here. Instead, we are not going to do that.
I am going to turn it back over because I think it is about time to close.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I just want to remind everyone that 51 kids are trapped after an orphanage is bombed and the director is killed. No heat or electricity. Cold front coming. That is Putin's Ukraine. We should be helping these people.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source