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Floor Speech
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Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, I returned Sunday night from 2 days in Ukraine. It was my third trip since the war began, and it came at a perilous and difficult time.
A week earlier, President Trump had blown up the meeting with President Zelenskyy, starting an argument in front of cameras that made the United States look like a weak bully. He gave away two of Ukraine's primary goals: regaining their territory and becoming a member of NATO. The result is a weakened hand in negotiations with Russia. And President Trump also cut off security and intelligence to Ukraine, leaving them blind and at risk of losing ground.
So I made a decision to travel to Ukraine to show my support for the Ukrainian people and to bring back information--what I would learn on the ground--about how these policy changes were going to impact the war. What I saw showed me just why we cannot give up on the Ukrainian people and why it is important to our security to keep Putin from winning.
Of course, the Ukrainians want this war to end. They want it to end more than anybody else. But any agreement has to protect Ukraine's security, and it can't be a giveaway to Putin.
This war started with what Putin thought would be a 3-day operation to take Kyiv and then control all of Ukraine. Now we are 3 years later, and that hasn't happened. The Ukrainian people, with security and intelligence assistance from us and from our allies, have been fighting for every inch of their homeland. They have endured constant missile barrages on cities and hospitals.
I visited one of these hospitals myself. And this hospital had been hit with gunfire. There were holes in the exterior walls of the hospital. There was a crater in the sidewalk in front of the door of this hospital where a mortar round landed. And there, in this hospital, I spoke to wounded soldiers who were eager for nothing more than to get back into this fight. I also met with nurses who shared their stories of this invasion through tears.
They told me--this is hard to repeat on the floor of the Senate. They told me how they witnessed Russian soldiers raping children in front of their parents and then murdering these same children in front of their parents--horrendous war crimes which can never be forgiven.
I met with Ukrainian pilots, one of whom I had met with in Tucson when he was learning to fly the F-16. I will be honest. When I first visited their F-16 training at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, I wasn't sure that they could step up to flying the Viper. It is not an easy airplane to fly. And I wasn't sure that they would be effective in combat.
Those pilots have more than proven themselves flying challenging combat missions against the Russians, who are protected by a considerable electronic warfare defense and a surface-to-air missile defense and, by the way, are also flying some pretty sophisticated airplanes.
I spoke to one pilot. This guy shot down six cruise missiles and drones on a single mission, and he did this while carrying only four air-to-air missiles. So how did he do this? Well, two of the targets he had a gun, used the gun of the F-16 to shoot them down. That is really hard to do.
My twin brother, who is also a Navy pilot, and I were both stunned. That is impressive. They are stepping up. Ukraine's underdog status against the heavyweight Russia has bred a scrappy innovation that the United States should envy and that we can learn from. I heard it in their words when they said that they would fight--get this, Mr. President--they said they would fight with rocks and sticks if they had to, to defend their country against Putin.
And I saw it in their efforts to produce cutting-edge weapons to take the fight directly to the Russian enemy. They are building one-way attack drones at an incredible rate, especially considering that they stood up this production from nothing. And that is what is possible when hitting your production target and every single day is a matter of life and death. They have an innovation cycle that is measured in days, while ours is measured in years.
We should learn from that because supporting Ukraine is not just about defending freedom. And freedom is a fundamental tenet of what makes America great. It is also critical to our national security and preventing future, bigger wars. Not only would victory make Putin stronger to strike further into Europe, but if the United States abandons Ukraine, what message does that send to our friends across the globe? It tells them we are untrustworthy and unreliable.
Now, as significant as that is, the bigger deal is what we would see from China. The Chinese watch everything, and they want to take Taiwan. If they view our loyalty to our partners and allies as weak, they are more likely to take Taiwan by force. If that happens, this President or any future President will have to make one of the most consequential decisions in the history of our country.
My goal is to prevent that moment. My goal in the Senate is and will continue to be to keep us out of wars. And I think that is true for most combat veterans like myself. So I came back this week with the message that we need to fix this mess and get back to supporting Ukraine.
Now, I am glad that already there has been positive movement. The announcement from the American and Ukrainian negotiations in Saudi Arabia yesterday, led by Secretary Rubio and the National Security Advisor Tim Walz, was a step forward. Once again, we are supporting Ukraine with military security assistance and with intelligence aid, and we are working toward a resolution to this war that guarantees Ukraine's security. And Ukraine accepted a proposal for an immediate 30-day cease-fire.
Now, this is going to come down to whether Putin will accept these terms and commit to a real negotiation. So far, he has shown no indication that he is ready for peace. Putin started this war by breaking a cease-fire. He has mobilized his entire country and the help of other dictators like Kim Jong Un to try to win this war, and every single day, his soldiers commit war crimes.
Not only must he agree to the terms of this cease-fire; he has to be held to them by the United States and our allies. America is the strongest and richest country in the world. We didn't get here by being bullies like Vladimir Putin. We got there by leading from the front and bringing our allies along with us and standing by them like they stand by us.
The safety and security of all of us--our kids, our grandkids-- depends on the United States continuing to keep its word, standing for democracy, and looking out for Americans by being smart and strong and standing up to the bullies. That is what I will hold this President to, and I urge my colleagues--Republicans and Democrats alike--to do the same.
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