Providing Military Assistance to Ukraine

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution offered by my friend, the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and supported strongly by the chairman of the committee and the former chair of the committee, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.

This resolution is bipartisan and reflects the will of Congress that the nation of Ukraine deserves every opportunity to chart a future based on democracy, territorial integrity, and freedom from Russian aggression.

I am the former chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, signed in Helsinki in August of 1975. In that agreement, the then-Soviet Union and 34 other nations signed a document which said that you could not change borders by other than peaceful means.

Vladimir Putin has broken that agreement, but he has also broken the agreement that, in 1994, we entered into with Ukraine in consideration of their giving up their nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin has sent Russian troops into another nation. He has tried to mask it. He has tried the pretense that this is simply separatists who are active; but, very frankly, those troops in Ukraine have admitted to the press that they are from Russia.

Vladimir Putin's support for violent separatists has destabilized a large region in eastern Ukraine and has led to the illegal--illegal--Russian occupation of Crimea. And the world hasn't done much to discourage not only the actions of Mr. Putin, but others who would learn the lessons of his actions.

The sanctions that the United States and its allies have imposed against Putin and his closest supporters, as well as measures to isolate Russian businesses that have enabled this aggression, are having serious effects, but not yet the effect that we want.

I believe that our Nation also has a responsibility to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Ukraine and their democratically elected government by sending them the tools they need to defend themselves. This is not a new position for me. When the Serbs effected a genocide in Bosnia Herzegovina, we had an arms embargo on the people of Bosnia while arms were flowing in from other parts of the world to Serbia. I thought that was wrong.

I think today the unwillingness or inability to create a consensus for giving to a people the ability to defend themselves is not good policy. If we continue to do so, there is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Putin will continue on his path of aggression and acquisition.

Mr. Speaker, we must continue to support Ukraine on its march towards greater democracy, stronger human rights, and a brighter future for its people. I urge my colleagues to join in supporting this resolution.

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