Supporting Ukraine's Independence

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this evening, along with several colleagues, I am here to discuss Ukraine and the necessity of Ukraine winning the war against Russia's invasion. I will be joined by Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois and Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.

As I begin, please let me remind the President of our country, our Vice President, and Secretary of State that freedom means never surrender. Liberty must never capitulate to dictatorship. America does not live alone on this Earth. Our Nation lives in a free world alliance, and this alliance is being tested globally every single day.

Especially America's leaders cannot turn their back to Russia's murderous forces bearing down including illegally on Ukraine. History is clear. The dictatorship of Russia takes what is not theirs. Russia invades territory that does not belong to it.

If one looks at this map, Russia is a vast country of 11 time zones. It does not lack for territory. Here is Ukraine. Just think about that. West of that lies Europe. Study the map. Mr. Speaker, if you know nothing about Europe and that vast continent, think about 11 time zones and then our closest allies in the free world. Let that settle.

The facts speak for themselves. If my colleagues need more proof, ask Poland, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and a dozen other countries that Russia covets. They cast off the Russian bear just a few decades ago, and Russia wants them back.

Russia taunts our closest military allies across the European Continent. Together, we and our allies honor our collective memory of our collective sacrifice and bloodshed that built the free world that the generation before us gave us.

The Trump administration has proposed that the United States abandon and even scold our European allies. Let me be clear. Our Nation intergenerationally and painstakingly has built the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a global fortress of democratic nations.

Across Europe, from the ruins of World War I and World War II lie the precious graves of 411,516 American soldiers and--no one knows exactly--35 million to 50 million Europeans who died fighting or in the crossfire.

These heroes and heroines fought for the cause of liberty. Then they built a world order in which they attempted to enshrine it. Forged from that coalition of suffering, our joint commitment to defend freedom above all else prevails.

This moment for Ukraine--Russia and Ukraine--is a key moment in history. It is our generation's crucial test of freedom or subjugation. No succor can be allowed to a murderous dictatorship, no matter how many of Russia's rich oligarchs seek to plunder and steal from the sacred soils and minerals of Ukraine. The free West must stand united and say no.

Lovers of freedom must not ignore history. Putin's illegal invasion of Crimea and other stolen territories in Ukraine should be forbidden and turned back. Conquest is his perversion and his corruption. No stolen territory from Ukraine should be ceded to Putin. Spanning 11 time zones, Russia holds enough territory.

Having traveled there many times, Vladimir Putin ought to take care of his own country. They have got major problems. Putin should help his own nation thrive again. He has no need for Ukraine, which is among the poorest Nations in Europe. Look how they are fighting for liberty. It brings tears to my eyes.

Putin's plunder seeks to reconstitute the dictatorship, the vanquished Soviet dictatorship, that extended as far West as here. He wants those smaller countries. He wants them back. He longs for them, but they are not his.

Putin now issues an ultimatum. He says there will be no peace deal unless Ukraine agrees to surrender territory that Russia ruthlessly and illegally seized and invaded, this little country, just as he did in Georgia.

The United States, as leader of the free world, must never, ever genuflect to tyrants. Aggressor Putin wants the United States to walk away from the negotiating table. According to the terms the U.S. Vice President and Secretary of State laid out today, those terms include ceding Ukraine's territory to Russia. I say no. Nyet. Nemaye. No.

The fact is Russia is losing the war it started without provocation. In 2014, she began during the Olympics, so no one would notice how she went in the back door. It is losing the war that Putin started. He escalated it in even bloodier fashion when he initiated a full-scale invasion in the year 2022.

Sadly, every step of the way, the Trump administration has conceded to Putin's demands without Ukraine's consent. He cannot negotiate for Ukraine. It is not his. Russia does not recognize international agreements. It never has.

For example, following World War II, Russia broke its border commitments made at the Yalta Conference with its conquest of Poland. That caused Poland to disappear as a free nation until the very brave ``solidarity,'' ``solidarnos'c''' demonstrators in Poland trip-wired the collapse of the Soviet Union beginning in 1989.

Then in 1994, Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum to guarantee Ukrainian security. For that, Ukraine gave up all the nuclear weapons that were staged in Ukraine.

In 2014, while the Olympics were ongoing in Sochi, Putin invaded Ukraine when people were distracted around the world and later turned that into a full-scale invasion in 2022. To his surprise, Ukraine has held them off.

Recently, Putin even violated the cease-fire on targeting energy and civilian infrastructure just negotiated by the Trump administration a few weeks ago. Putin cannot keep a deal.

This should make it crystal clear that dictator Vladimir Putin and his thug state cannot be trusted. Read history. Why would the U.S. President, Vice President, Secretary of State, or any world leader believe that communist dictator Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime will hold to any peace agreement? Russia never keeps its word.

The only way to force Russia to abide by such an agreement is to include strong security guarantees for Ukraine. The world community must do that. A peace accord must ensure Russia will remain inside its own borders or face serious global sanctions, so severe they will cripple and collapse the Russian economy.

Short of that, with the apparent abdication of the U.S. President, Vice President, and Secretary of State, Ukraine has everything to lose and Russia everything to gain. Who would want that outcome? What kind of mindset would want that?

The White House isn't leading a legitimate peace process. It is enabling the globally aggressive reach of the most lethal dictatorship in Europe. The free world must not allow this. Putin will take everything he wants and more unless he is stopped.

America must not appease dictators. We should support our fierce allies to fight dictatorship with every fiber in our being. Ukraine needs ammunition and arms. We must send them. They are not asking us to fight, but they are asking us to help arm them along with our European allies.

Defending freedom's alliance is our highest calling here--to protect and defend the American people and our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Quigley for his strong and constant support of Ukraine. I thank the gentleman so much for representing the State of Illinois and the thousands and tens of thousands of citizens there who so deeply care about victory for Ukraine.

Let me now move to a highly capable Member from the eastern part of the great State of Pennsylvania, Congresswoman Madeleine Dean.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Dean so very much for joining us and for her firm, firm support of Ukraine and all she has done to give light to the children of Ukraine and thousands upon thousands, over 20,000 minimum, stolen by Russia and taken back to Russia from the arms of their parents in Ukraine as Russia tries to reprogram their brain to become Russian.

I think that the leadership of the gentlewoman has been very important during this entire period of the war and for all the people who have died needlessly, as Ukraine is the scrimmage line for liberty on the European Continent. As the map behind the gentlewoman so well illustrates, any American or reasonable person looking at that would say: Why is Russia picking on such a small country?

The fierce fighting that the Ukrainians have exhibited through bravery against that is profound.

I am just so honored, and I know the gentlewoman feels the same way, to have met President Zelenskyy and so many of his advisers, individuals in the military, and wounded soldiers. Russia has lost over 100,000 soldiers. We are not sure how many. It is a lot. Those soldiers didn't have to die. They could be doing things in Russia to help Russia.

I have traveled there. I have seen the level at which people live. The Russian people deserve better.

Why is Putin wasting all this money on arms? He needs to be investing in housing. I have gone up eight-story skyscrapers where--I won't even talk about the sanitary conditions, but they are not good. I have been into wards with people who are mentally ill, and I have seen the sad situation in which they live. I couldn't even imagine someone from my family having to exist in those conditions.

I have walked across the country in different places and met Russians who are trying to make a go of it by growing food and getting it into the bigger cities.

I have tried to visit religious institutions in Russia and learned how the government there suppresses free religious expression. They force any church there, if they even allow it in, to speak in Russian, not the native language, let's say, of where the people might come who would want to have that ceremony in multilingual or even translated and be able to listen to that. Russia doesn't do that. She is very inward.

The birthrate is going down in Russia. I have been in birth wards in Russia. I wouldn't recommend that to any woman, if you could see how poorly they are accoutred and how poorly they are provided for.

There is a major alcoholism and drug problem in Russia, as well.

I think Vladimir Putin ought to take care of his own people and not have dibs on Ukraine just because he is one of the largest militaries in the world.

I think the Ukrainian valor has been astounding.

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Ms. KAPTUR. They need everything. They need tourniquets. I mentioned arms. They need to be remembered.

The Government of the United States is only about one-quarter of our economy, but 75 percent of our economy is private. People can send boxes. They can remember them. They can send money through Western Union to the people of Ukraine and to help those who are living in Poland in order to help them meet the costs of having the refugees who come from Ukraine into Poland. There is so much Americans can do.

People in my district raised money to send a shower, for them to buy a shower so they could put it in the local school so people could actually clean themselves where the lights keep going off and Russia makes it hard for people.

You can send seed, Mr. Speaker, so that it is easier for people to be able to plant in their gardens. They are very thrifty and practical people. They are educated. Many of the Ukrainians I meet speak several languages. They want to meet the world. They don't want to be put inside a cage again. That is really what they face.

I wanted to say a few things about my family if the gentlewoman wanted to add anything now. I wanted to mention a few of the people I have met who fought during World War II and allowed for some of Europe to be free.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Slava Ukraini. I know that the people who are listening tonight and will hear our words will say: What can we do, Marcy? What can we do to really help them?

I said that children in classrooms can write little notes and send them. If they use the internet and if they have internet capability, then send them a note. Teachers all over our country: Don't expect just the Government of the United States to do this. The American people are powerful in their own right.

If you do shoe drives where you have a school or a company and you see that everybody has some pairs of shoes that don't fit them that still have a lot of good wear, then put them in a box and send them off.

The same thing is true with aspirin and creams for people's hands. They work with their hands. They need gloves to work with the soil. They raise their own food. They live at a simple level.

Sweaters and boots for the men as they go through the forests, and bicycles--there are so many things that are needed there that we just throw away. We just throw away material and plastics so that they can keep the wind out of their very humble homes in the wintertime.

I think there are so many things that people just take for granted that are here but that are, especially during a time of war, so expensive for them. Their salaries have been cut, and I think Americans can do a lot. Be creative. Do for them what you would do for your own family, Mr. Speaker.

I want to mention, as I think about and reflect when I was first elected to Congress, there was a Congressman from California named Tom Lantos. He was a Holocaust survivor. He was from Hungary, and he was imprisoned by Hitler. He used to come to the floor, and he fought so hard for the fall of the Soviet Union and for liberty across Europe.

I remember him and I want to honor him this evening and say to his family--I know some live in New Hampshire, and others live in California. They are scattered in other places, I think. He was such a great inspiration to us because of what he had suffered. He was driven to ensure that what happened in his lifetime would never happen again.

That is what is at stake right now: liberty in Europe, our closest allies. We do not live in this world alone. We have 340 million people. China has a billion and a half. Russia has about 130 million. Other countries in Europe have much smaller populations, but when the United States puts its population and our military strength together with our NATO allies, with our allies in the Pacific, all of a sudden, you can see liberty's umbrella, and it is armed to protect our people. To date, we have been able to do that.

I give credit to Members like Tom Lantos.

Also when I arrived, we had a Congressman named Jack Brooks of Texas, who had been a pilot decorated during World War II. He never talked about it, didn't talk about his honors.

I can remember when John Kennedy was killed, Jack Brooks was on that airplane that came back to Washington with the body of John Kennedy, who fought during World War II, a young President that we lost because of an assassination here but who had fought for our liberty.

We paid honor today to John LaFalce. As a younger Member of Congress, I remember going with Congressman LaFalce on a delegation over to Europe during the 1980s, when I was first elected, the first decade of my service. I pay tribute to him and to what he taught us, what we saw.

I pay tribute to my own family, to Uncle Stanley Rogowski, who was D- day 4 on Normandy's beaches, wounded in action, came home, lived a full life, helped educate me about what liberty really is: freedom from oppression. Freedom is the condition of being free. Liberty is being freed from tyranny. He was a part of that.

I honor Alexander Drabik, from my own district. He was a great soldier who was in the Army and was the first man to cross the Remagen Bridge in Germany, which was the turning point of the war.

Finally, I honor Roger Durbin, a veteran of our Army who gave me the idea to create the World War II Memorial here where now over 100 million people have visited to honor our heroes and our heroines.

Slava Ukraini.

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