Russia's Expanded Terrorist War Against Ukraine
Floor Speech
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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, today I rise to mark more than 1 year of Russia's expanded terrorist war against Ukraine after its initial unprovoked invasion in 2014.
The words of Ukraine's poet laureate Taras Shevchenko ring especially true today as when he penned them nearly two centuries ago:
`` . . . rise ye up and break your heavy chains and water with the tyrants' blood, the freedom you have gained.''
Ukraine's moment to victory is now. The defining accomplishment of the 20th century was the victory of liberty over tyranny. Vanquishing Nazi and imperialist tyranny and defeating the forces of Soviet-imposed communism a half century later ended the Cold War.
New institutions for the common defense of liberty, including NATO, were founded. The U.S. Marshall Plan helped to secure and rebuild a war-torn but free Europe, and both America and liberty prospered.
Through the bipartisan leadership of great Americans, including General George Marshall, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, America rose--though somewhat reluctantly--to be liberty's standard-bearer. And even in those European nations that had fallen behind the Iron Curtain, such as Ukraine, the impulse for freedom hastened. For America, helping liberty defeat tyranny has always been bipartisan.
Recall the images of President John Kennedy in West Germany declaring ``Ich bin ein Berliner.''
President Ronald Reagan stood behind the Brandenburg Gate nearly two decades later near the Berlin Wall demanding, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.''
Those images defined the boundary between East and West: free people versus subjugated people.
It was barely 2 years after President Reagan's speech and after over four decades of free world vigilance that the world witnessed the profound victory of the valiant Solidarnosc workers in the steelyards of Gdansk, Poland.
Soon, captive nations subjugated by the Soviet Union for decades began to tumble. First, in 1989, Poland. Then in 1991, Ukraine. Then the entirety of the captive nations held subjugated by the Soviet Union. It was a major turning point in the arc of world history.
The Allied post-war institutions created to defend liberty still exist today. Indeed, now with Sweden and Finland joining NATO, that alliance grows stronger than it has ever been.
Ukraine, too, seeks to join its European allies who are democratic in the European Union. Ukrainian soldiers meanwhile embattled and vastly outnumbered are dying, dying, dying for the cause of self-determination and liberty. Against great odds, Ukraine faces an enemy three times their population with far more military resources, but they fight.
To gain a sense of what Ukrainians are feeling right now, visit the World War II Memorial here in Washington, D.C. Seek to understand the sacrifices of the more than 400,000 Americans whose lives were given to liberty in its cause on the Atlantic, Pacific, and African fronts during the 20th century so that we, our generations, could remain free.
Under Soviet domination, no nation in the world suffered more than Ukraine. More than 4 million innocent people were systematically starved to death by Joseph Stalin, with millions upon millions upon millions more, whose names we will never know, murdered by Stalin's brutal Communist regime. America has been absent those horrors, thank God.
Despite these bestial atrocities, America at times has turned a blind eye to Russian atrocities dating back to its World War II unholy alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazism.
In 2008, when Russian President Vladimir Putin stormed into The Republic of Georgia, President George W. Bush looked the other way. In 2014, when Vladimir Putin, entirely unprovoked, originally invaded Ukraine and subjugated Crimea, President Barack Obama paused.
Now Putin, in trying to capture the sovereign nation of Ukraine and hold it under his tyrannical claw, has gone too far. America has resumed its role as the vigorous and uncompromising defender of free and aspiring people. Liberty must check tyranny. Today, Ukraine seeks liberty for her 40 million people--Liberty must win. Liberty will win.
President Biden, Senate leaders Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Senator Lindsey Graham, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, and other impassioned advocates of both parties champion Ukraine's cause. America and our allies have responded to the crisis by sending fervent support in the form of weapons and humanitarian aid. What happens next? In one word, victory.
Our Nation does not exist alone on this globe. Isolation is strangulation. America's democratic ally Ukraine is pleading for help. President Biden has made his position clear: he will support Ukraine ``as long as it takes.'' And he will not let Putin force Ukraine to negotiate away its territory. He takes these positions because he knows it would be aiding and abetting the enemy for America to look the other way. To do nothing is essentially choosing to side with Russia over Ukraine. In the long term that would be foolhardy and dangerous both for the United States and for a safer, more democratic world.
America is still a young land and, in some ways, largely sheltered from the lengths to which vicious tyrants will go to wipe out free people. Putin is prepared to go to those lengths. This is the time to choose. This is the time to fight. This is the time to stand up and defend liberty, at home and abroad. Each generation must make fateful choices. So must we.
When our great Nation was founded, most of the world's population were slaves, serfs, or subjugated. Even then, one of our Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry, grasped the concept of liberty. He challenged our forbearers: ``Give me Liberty or give me death.'' He understood what was at stake then, just as the people of Ukraine do today. So must we. The free world must choose liberty. America stands with our Allies to strengthen democracy, and realize in our time and generation a free, sovereign, and independent Ukraine. Slava Ukraini! Glory to Ukraine.
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