Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), the chairman of the committee, for yielding. I thank him for his leadership in bringing this bill to the floor quickly and effectively. I thank Mr. Wilson, who represents the minority, and also Mr. McCaul, who is the ranking member of the committee, for bringing this. I thank Mrs. Spartz for bringing this issue to the personal attention of all of us, with her personal knowledge of Ukraine and her love of her native country.
Madam Speaker, in 1940, after the Battle of France had ended and the Battle of Britain was beginning, Winston Churchill stood before the House of Commons and declared that the United Kingdom would fight on, if necessary, for years; if necessary, alone.
Britain would fight by itself for some time, but it was not alone. Even though America was not at war, we made a strategic and moral determination that we must help Britain defend itself against fascism. To do that, we set up the lend-lease program, which cut through red tape and enabled critical American military aid to reach our Allies quickly so they could win the Battle of Britain, hold back the forces of fascism, and begin a counteroffensive in North Africa.
Lend-lease established America as what President Franklin Roosevelt called the great arsenal of democracy.
Today, the battle for democracy is taking place in another European nation, Ukraine. The Ukrainian people are the ones engaged in combat directly. They are at the point of the spear. They are the ones experiencing death and destruction and displacement. They are directly in the line of the Russian troops to repel Vladimir Putin's criminal and unprovoked invasion, an act that recalls the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941: unprovoked, unjustified, unacceptable.
But they are not alone in this fight. Already, the Biden-Harris administration and our allies have sent billions of dollars' worth of lethal military aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Putin's unlawful and immoral aggression.
I heard the words of my friend from South Carolina that Putin has brought us together, has unified us, unified us as a NATO alliance, unified us as a European Union and the United States of America, unified us as a Congress, that this shall not stand. Already, the Biden-Harris administration and our allies have sent billions of dollars' worth of lethal military aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Putin's unlawful and immoral aggression.
Putin, of course, meant the battle for Kyiv to be short-lived, to last days, and to see Ukraine's democratic government overthrown and a quisling regime installed.
The battle of Kyiv, however, was won by the forces of freedom, thanks to the extraordinary heroism and courage of Kyiv's defenders and the antitank weapons and other equipment supplied by America and its NATO allies. They are not alone.
Now, with war raging in Ukraine's east, we are rapidly sending additional arms to the Ukrainians that will help them hold the line against Russian forces and engage in the kind of counteroffensive that will defeat Russia's invasion.
How extraordinarily ironic it is that Putin urges us not to escalate the war as Putin escalates it hourly, unjustifiably, criminally, despicably. Every negative adjective you can find applies to the unwarranted, unprovoked, and unacceptable aggression Russia has made on its neighbors.
As I told The Danish Foreign Policy Society when I was visiting with our allies earlier this month, the invasion of Ukraine must end in a strategic defeat for Putin and global criminality. Anything less would send a dangerous signal to other dictators around the world that wars of aggression could yield net gains. That must not happen.
America and our allies must ensure that the only thing Putin gains from the invasion of Ukraine is a hard lesson learned through bitter defeat and loss. Let there be no mistake; that is the only outcome we can accept.
The lend-lease bill we will pass today is a bipartisan expression of the House's support for Ukraine and the continued provision of the lethal arms it requires to defend its freedom, its sovereignty, and its people.
I thank, as I said earlier, Chairman Gregory Meeks, Ranking Member Michael McCaul, Representative Joe Wilson, and staff members of the Foreign Affairs Committee for their work on this bill.
The Senate passed this legislation unanimously earlier this month. I urge my colleagues: This is not a partisan issue. This is about freedom. This is about democracy. This is about morality. This should not be an issue that is at all dividing the 435 of us who have the honor to serve in this body.
Once this legislation is enacted, the Biden-Harris administration will have another tool to ensure that military aid reaches Ukraine quickly and efficiently so that it can be deployed to the front lines and defend democracy. We owe freedom nothing less than that.
The White House has already requested additional funding for military and humanitarian aid, and the House will stand ready to take action once there is agreement on the path forward.
I tell Chairman Meeks of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I tell Chairman Smith of the Armed Services Committee, as soon as that is ready to move, I will move it as soon as it is possible.
The White House has urgently requested the resources that Ukraine needs. Can we do any less than that? In the meantime, I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, as I said, unanimously. Let us show Vladimir Putin, let us show the dictators and autocrats of the world, let us show them what happens when democracy is attacked.
Hitler thought when he took Sudetenland and the free world did little that he could then go to Poland, and he could go to Russia, and he could go to Africa, and he could go to France, and he could go someplace else.
The free world led by America must make it very clear that it will not stand for this, that America will be part of an extraordinary alliance of free nations, moral nations, who believe in law, not might makes right.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to unanimously and decisively approve this legislation.
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Spartz).
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