[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 123 (Monday, July 23, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H6635-H6636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PUTIN'S DANGEROUS ACTIONS
(Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, like a bull in a china shop, President Trump
bulldozed his way through the NATO summit, offending our allies, and
then in Helsinki was shamefully servile to Russia's autocratic ruler,
Vladimir Putin. Autocrat Putin boasts a long list of brutal and violent
threats to liberty here at home and abroad.
In early 2014, Russian forces illegally invaded Ukraine's Crimea and
the Donbass region. Thousands have been killed and millions of
Ukrainians displaced.
On February 27, 2015, Russian freedom fighter, Boris Nemtsov, was
gunned down outside the Kremlin's crimson walls.
In the 2016 election, Russian intelligence services used social media
and cyber attacks to target our democratic elections and those of
several of our allies.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 58 Russian
journalists have been brutally murdered since 1992.
Mr. Speaker, Russia is ``Murder Incorporated'' under Putin's
abhorrent rule.
I include in the Record a long list of some of Russia's brutal,
murderous actions.
Brutal and Undemocratic Actions of Dictator Vladimir Putin's Russia
2000--Putin was supposed to face a second-round runoff in
the 2000 presidential election, had it not been for
widespread fraud. Biased coverage by large media outlets
controlled by the Russian state and Kremlin supporters can be
accredited for this. (Freedom House)
2003--Mikhail Khodorkovsky is arrested by Russian
authorities and charged with fraud. The trial was criticized
for lack of due process. Charges against him were grounded in
reasonable suspicion.
2003--Russia ranked 86 out of 133 countries in Transparency
International's 2003 Corruption Perceptions Index.
2003--Russia saw a significant deterioration of fundamental
rights and the emergence of an increasingly aggressive
foreign
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policy, reflecting the consolidation of power by former
security and military officers. Russia's constitutional court
struck down key provisions of the law that banned journalists
from making positive or negative observations about
candidates or parties.
2006 October 7--Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who
exposed the corruption of the Russian army and its conduct in
Chechnya, was shot and killed in the lobby of her apartment.
2006--Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned. Litvinenko was a
former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)
and KGB, who fled from court prosecution in Russia and
received political asylum in the United Kingdom.
2008--Russia wages a war against Georgia. Today, thousands
of Russian troops occupy Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region,
which constitutes about 20% of Georgia's internationally
recognized territory. Russia has never fulfilled its
obligations under the Six-Point Cease-Fire Agreement (also
known as the Sarkozy Plan) that ended the fighting.
2010: Polish Air Force Tu-154 Crash over Smolensk, Russia.
Antoni Macierewicz (Poland's defense minister) claims the
fatal crash which killed Poland's President Lech Kaczynski,
the First Lady and 94 others in 2010 in Russia was preceded
by two explosions on board. A previous Polish government
concluded that pilot error was to blame for the crash, but
Law and Justice ordered a new investigation which concluded
this year that the plane was brought down by explosions on
board. No international analysis was allowed by Russia.
2013--Putin signs law banning gay publications. ``It
officially declares that gays and lesbians are inferior
beings,'' says Elena Klimova, a gay rights activist in Russia
who was convicted under the law in 2014.
2014--Putin illegally invades Ukraine. More than 10,000
have been killed, and millions of Ukrainians have been
displaced.
2014--Russia occupies Crimean Peninsula and nearly ten
thousand Crimean Tatars are displaced from their homes.
Russia under the Putin regime has violated UN human rights,
and infringements of the Geneva Convention.
2014--Russian forces shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight
MH17 over occupied Ukrainian territory, killing 298 innocent
passengers. Russia attempts to use disinformation and
propaganda to cover up obfuscate the truth of its brutality.
2014--Human rights abuses in Russia are more prevalent than
ever. The LGBTQ+ community is targeted. Independent media
report that 31 civilians were killed in the first nine months
of 2014. Abduction-style detentions, torture, and enforced
disappearances persisted in the North Caucasus, as did
attacks against government critics, the report says, adding
that the situation is particularly bad in Dagestan.
2014--Oleg Sentsov, Ukrainian filmmaker, is arrested under
charges of running ``terrorist organizations'' in Crimea.
2015--Natalya Sharina, the director of the Ukrainian
Literature Library in Moscow, was put under house arrest in
2015 under the charges of inciting ethnic hatred and
spreading ``anti-Russian propaganda.''
2015--Journalist Boris Nemstov is shot and killed. Nemstov
was planning on leading a rally to protest the war in Ukraine
days before his killing.
2016--Russian authorities arrested Roman Sushchenko, a
Ukrainian journalist with the state news service, Ukrinform,
on dubious espionage charges.
2016--Russia attacks U.S. election. Wisconsin, Ohio,
California and 10 other states said they were among 21 states
that Russian government hackers targeted in an effort to sway
the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump
though no votes were changed.
Federal and congressional intelligence groups that have
stated that Russia interfered in the election: CIA, Office of
the Director of National Intelligence, FBI, NSA, Justice
Department, House Intelligence Committee, Senate Intelligence
Committee.
2017: In December, the Central Election Commission banned
opposition leader Aleksey Navalny from challenging Putin in
the 2018 presidential election, removing from the contest the
only credible opposition to have announced a campaign.
2017--Russian authorities banned the activities of the
Jehovah's Witnesses, which was deemed an extremist group.
2017: Investigative journalist and Novy Peterburg cofounder
Nikolay Andrushchenko died in April, weeks after he was
severely beaten, and Dmitriy Popkov, editor of the
investigative online outlet Ton-M, was shot to death in May.
2017--Workers on stadiums built for the 2017 FIFA
Confederations Cup and 2018 World Cup reported exploitation,
including non-provision of contracts, non-payment of wages,
and retaliation for reporting abuses. The Building and
Woodworkers International trade union reported at least 17
deaths on stadiums since construction began.
2017--By February 2017, the number of people imprisoned for
extremist speech spiked to 94, from 54 in 2015.
2017--In the first six months of 2017 alone, the number of
people administratively punished by Russian authorities for
supposedly violating the country's regulations on public
gatherings was two-and-a-half times higher than throughout
2016.
2017--Denis Voronenkov, a onetime Communist member of
Russia's lower house of parliament, dies after being shot
outside a hotel in Kyiv. President Poroshenko calls the
shooting a ``Russian state terrorist act.'' Voronenkov, who
fled to Ukraine in 2016, is the latest in a string of Putin
and Russia's critics who were killed or injured under
mysterious circumstances.
2017--Russia interferes in the French election between
opponents Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. The Macron
presidential campaign accused the Kremlin of election
meddling, saying that servers belonging to the team were
hacked by a group likely to be associated with Russia.
2018--Father and daughter Sergei and Yulia Skripal are
poisoned. British foreign secretary Boris Johnson said on 16
March that it was ``overwhelmingly likely'' that the
poisoning had been ordered directly by Russian president
Putin, which marked the first time the British government
accused Vladimir Putin of personally ordering the poisoning.
2018: Donald Trump accepts Putin's lies on Russian
interference in U.S. elections over statement from U.S.
Intelligence Community: ``My people came to me, Dan Coats
came to me and some others, they think it's Russia. I have
President Putin, he just said it's not Russia. I will say
this; I don't see any reason why it would be. I have great
confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you
that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his
denial today.'' --Trump, Helsinki Conference 2018
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I urge our President to see Putin for what
he is: an enemy of liberty, not a competitor.
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