Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over this last weekend, the world saw a much clearer picture about the atrocities being committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

As Russian troops withdrew from certain areas in the north, around Kyiv, Ukrainian forces are moving into these cities for the first time in weeks.

In Bucha, a city just north of Kyiv, devastating images showed the carnage from the Russian occupation. Photos showed burned-out apartment buildings, bodies lining the streets, and mass graves. It appears that some of the victims died execution style, with their hands tied behind their backs.

The world can be under no illusion about Putin's barbarity. Russian forces have targeted residential neighborhoods, humanitarian evacuation routes, and even a bread line. The discovery of hundreds of dead civilians in Bucha underscores the urgent need to hold Putin accountable for his crimes and to help the Ukrainians defend their country.

Of course, people around the world have united in condemnation of Putin's heinous actions, but those statements must be accompanied by further action. Putin really doesn't care whether we like him or not. He has his own plans and his own aims.

We need to take additional actions that impose even greater costs on Russia. Following Russia's unprovoked invasion, the United States and our allies imposed powerful sanctions on Russian businesses and oligarchs and cut off Russian banks from the global financial system.

The goal, of course, is to make it impossible for Putin to fund his war machine. And in the beginning, the results were encouraging. In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the ruble plummeted to a record low, but, unfortunately, in the last few weeks, it has slowly rebounded.

One of the biggest drivers of that stabilization is Russia's sale of oil and gas. Fortunately, the United States is no longer one of its customers, and I hope we never will be again.

Our European allies depend on Russian energy to keep the lights on, but even they are reevaluating their energy dependency and looking for alternative energy producers. Poland has committed to ending its import of Russian energy by the end of this year, and I hope more countries will follow suit. But we can't sit around and just wait for that to happen. We need to do more to raise the cost of this war, this unprovoked invasion on Ukraine.

Every day Putin persists, more innocents die. It appears Russia has found a loophole in some of our current sanctions. The Russian Federation is buying gold to offset the devaluation of the ruble and then selling gold on the international markets in exchange for high- value currency. In short, Russia is laundering money through the international gold markets, and we need to stop it.

That is why a bipartisan group of Senators, including myself, have introduced the Stop Russian GOLD Act that would bring an end to this circumvention of our sanctions. This legislation would apply sanctions to parties who help Russia finance their war by buying and selling this blood gold.

That means anyone who buys or transports gold from Russia's central bank holdings would themselves be the target of sanctions--a big deterrent for anyone considering doing business with Russia.

We need to take every measure possible to cut the financing of Putin's war machine, and this is one important way to do so.

This is not just a matter of countering Russia or supporting Ukraine, we must remain clear-eyed in our efforts to do both. We have to do both. Of course, the ultimate goal is to help Ukraine vanquish Russian forces entirely. The United States and our allies have already provided a large quantity of military assets to Ukraine. And there is no question: These resources have been critical in the Ukrainians success so far.

But there is no substitution for the will to fight and the leadership being provided by President Zelenskyy. That, I believe, has been the difference--and certainly not what Vladimir Putin anticipated.

But as we continue to hear from President Zelenskyy and our partners in Europe, we know we need to do more, and we need to do it faster. I know it is easy to think, well, we will just let the supply chains and the logistic systems work as they always have, but we are not being bombarded by Russian artillery or being attacked by cruise missiles, as are the Ukrainians.

Last month, I traveled to Poland and Germany with Senator Ernst and a bipartisan group of Senate colleagues to hear directly from those who are most in harm's way.

The primary message we heard was: We need more. We need more humanitarian aid; we need more weapons; and we need it faster--more Stingers, more Javelins, more air defenses, more lethal aid, including the need for aircraft.

I remain somewhat confused and disappointed that the Biden administration still publicly refuses to transfer MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine so that they can use them.

I know it is easy for us to sit back and say, Well, they really don't know how to use them, or they don't need them, but the fact is Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly these Russian aircraft--and who are we to deny President Zelenskyy and the valiant Ukrainians whatever they think they need in order to do the job?

President Biden explicitly said Putin ``can't remain in power.'' But then his administration seems to blame something like a simple transfer of aircraft as too provocative.

This doesn't make any sense. We can't play into Putin's hand by withholding needed or desired military assets to Ukraine. We in Congress need to play our part as well to make sure that anything and everything we can do to help the brave Ukrainians, we are doing. And we can't move at the speed of the normal bureaucracy.

Every day, Ukrainians are being killed--both the military and civilians alike--by Putin's war machine. They need help now, not after the Senate's next work period, not after the Biden administration succumbs to a public pressure campaign. They need help now.

Unfortunately, Congress doesn't have the authority to insist upon the transfer of the Polish MiGs, but we can remove some of the redtape that prevents the timely transfer of other defense articles Ukraine needs. Mr. Cardin, the senior Senator from Maryland, and I have introduced bipartisan legislation called Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act to ensure that Ukrainian forces have the resources they need to win this fight.

Our bill is rooted in the same principles as the original Lend-Lease Act in World War II that was largely responsible for supplying Britain and our other allies the planes, the ammunition, and the weapons they needed in order to defeat Nazi Germany. President Roosevelt, at the time, vowed to transform the United States into the arsenal of democracy, and the Lend-Lease Act was one way we did that.

I think it is important, particularly at this perilous time, for us to send another strong bipartisan message that we are not just in this for the short haul, we are in this for the long haul, for however long it lasts, for however long the Ukrainians are willing to fight to defend their country against this invasion, and this is one way we can do it.

This legislation authorizes the President to enter into lend-lease agreements directly with Ukraine and provide Ukrainian forces with the lethal weapons needed to defend their sovereignty.

Part of the difficulty of transferring these weapons is the supply chains and production lines for the weapons that are being used at a high rate.

What the Lend-Lease Act would do would be to send the message that, again, we are in this for the long haul, and the manufacturers of these weapons can be assured that if they are willing to be part of that arsenal of democracy, they won't be left hanging or left high and dry.

In short, this will also allow us to answer Ukraine's call to provide more of what they need and get it to them as quickly as possible.

So far, more than 20 Senators from both sides of the aisle have cosponsored this legislation, and I hope we can pass it and pass it soon. This is an emergency. We don't have time to dither, and Congress has the opportunity right now to do more to provide support to Ukraine.

So I say, let's pass this legislation and ensure Ukrainians have what they need when they need it. It is absolutely critical for the Senate to pass this legislation, and it doesn't matter which route they take to the President's desk. They could move as stand-alone bills or as part of a larger package of bills or as amendments to a bipartisan piece of legislation that passed the House last month. The actual vehicle isn't important. What matters is that we get these bills to the President's desk as soon as possible. Every day that goes by without action on our part is a day wasted and another day that innocent Ukrainians are being killed.

To have the best shot at winning this conflict, Ukraine needs two things: a strong defense and a weak opponent. This week, the Senate has an opportunity to pass two bipartisan bills that address both of those efforts, and I hope we will do so this week.

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