[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 20 (Tuesday, February 1, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S430-S431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Ukraine

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, there is a photograph that we have all 
seen: six battle-weary victorious marines raising the American flag on 
Iwo Jima. It is one of the most iconic photos of World War II.
  It was taken 77 years ago this month. Among those six brave marines 
was a coal miner's son from western Pennsylvania. His name was Sgt 
Michael Strank. At 25 years of age, he was the oldest of the six flag 
raisers. The men in his rifle squad idolized him. One of them said: 
``He was the kind of Marine you read about, the kind they make movies 
about.''
  Sergeant Strank used to tell his men: ``Follow me and I'll try to 
bring you all home safely to your mothers.''
  One week after he raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi, 
Michael Strank was killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima. He was the first 
of the six flag raisers to die.
  Today, he is buried among America's heroes in Arlington National 
Cemetery, but that is not the end of the story.
  In 2008, a Marine security guard based at the U.S. Embassy in 
Slovakia discovered that Michael Strank was not a natural-born U.S. 
citizen; he had received his citizenship through his father when his 
father became a U.S. citizen in 1935. So where was this marine's marine 
born? He was the first child born into an ethnic Ukrainian family in 
what is now Slovakia. Like my own mother, who was born in Lithuania, 
Michael Strank came to America with his mother as a toddler, as soon as 
his father could save the money for their passage.
  Those who were there that day on Iwo Jima will remember that a loud 
cheer went up from thousands of marines when they saw, finally, that 
red, white, and blue of the U.S. flag flying over the highest peak on 
that island. They knew that that day, in the war between freedom and 
tyranny, freedom had won.
  Today, almost 80 years later, the battle between freedom and tyranny 
continues, and one of its new flash points is Ukraine. The Ukrainian 
people have made it clear: They want to be free and independent. They 
want to chart their own future. They want to choose their own leaders 
through elections that they conduct.
  This is the future that more than 92 percent of Ukrainians chose in a 
referendum in 1991, after Ukraine declared its independence from the 
crumbling and corrupt Soviet Union, but Russian President Vladimir 
Putin--the old KGB agent--refuses to acknowledge Ukraine's right to 
exist, its right to independence, and its right to self-determination.
  For almost 100 days, from November 2013 to January 2014, the 
Ukrainian people waged a ``Revolution of Dignity'' to force from office 
a corrupt, Russian-backed, puppet President--and they won. In 
retaliation, Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula and parts 
of eastern Ukraine and installed a Russian-friendly government. This 
forceful occupation of parts of Ukraine by Russia marked the first 
time, the first time since World War II ended, that one nation had 
redrawn the map of Europe by force.
  For the last 8 years, Russia has tried relentlessly to destabilize 
the democratically elected Government in Ukraine. This is part of the 
reason that President Trump's efforts to withhold congressionally 
approved military aid for Ukraine in order to extract political favors 
was egregious. Now, Putin has amassed more than 120,000 Russian 
soldiers on the borders of Ukraine. Whether Putin is driven by 
megalomaniacal delusions of restoring the Soviet Union or is simply 
seeking to create chaos and sow dissension among NATO allies is 
unclear, but here is what is clear: A Russian invasion of Ukraine would 
constitute a grave assault not only on Ukraine, but on the institutions 
and agreements that have kept peace in Europe for almost 75 years.
  A Russian invasion of Ukraine also could be seen as a danger to our 
NATO allies in Poland and in the courageous young Baltic democracies in 
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It would be a catastrophic mistake on 
Putin's part, and President Biden has made that point over and over.
  Chicago is home to one of the largest Polish communities outside of 
Warsaw, the largest Lithuanian community outside of Vilnius, and one of 
the largest Ukrainian communities outside of Kyiv. More than 46,000 
Ukrainian Americans live in the Chicago area, the third largest 
Ukrainian community in the United States.
  A week ago, I attended a celebration at the Cultural Center in 
Chicago, on Chicago Avenue in Ukrainian Village. Also speaking at that 
gathering was Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United 
States. I can tell you, the Polish and Lithuanian communities in 
Chicago were there standing in solidarity with the people of Ukraine--
and with the people of Poland, Lithuania, and the Baltic to decide 
their own futures.
  Vladimir Putin and his henchmen should know that the United States, 
NATO, and the entire community of democracies also believe that it is 
the right exclusively of Ukraine and other young democracies to protect 
their territorial boundaries and decide their own fate. The United 
States made its position clear yesterday in the U.N. Security Council. 
Ukraine, the United States, NATO, and the entire community of 
democracies all want a diplomatic solution to Russia's threats on 
Ukraine. That is what we seek. If Vladimir Putin wants to avoid a 
debacle that will cost his nation dearly in lives and treasure, he will 
agree to this solution.
  I commend President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and their 
teams for their strong support of Ukrainian independence and against 
Russian aggression. The Biden administration has provided significant 
military equipment for our Ukrainian friends to ensure that President 
Putin knows the price that a further invasion will cost. The 
administration has also bolstered the defense capabilities of our NATO 
partners in Poland and the Baltics. And if Putin is counting on 
partisan division in the Senate to weaken America's resolve to defend 
Ukraine and its neighbors, he is mistaken.
  Yesterday, Senator Grassley and I introduced a bipartisan 
resolution celebrating 100 years of diplomatic relations between the 
United States and the Baltic States and reaffirming our close 
relationship with these young democracies. Later this week, Senator 
Shaheen and I and several of our colleagues, from both parties, will 
meet with the Baltic and Polish Ambassadors to reaffirm U.S. support 
for their nations.

  I hope that we will also see strong, bipartisan support for 
legislation that is being drafted by Senators Menendez and Risch, the 
chair and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 
That bill will impose severe, crippling economic sanctions on

[[Page S431]]

Russia for any further invasion of Ukraine. It would bolster similar 
bruising sanctions drawn up by the Biden administration. It will ensure 
that any Russian aggression against Ukraine or its neighbors will be 
felt in Russia by their economy and their people.
  I mentioned that my mom came to this country when she was 2 years 
old, from Lithuania, in 1911. Her boat landed in Baltimore. At the 
time, Lithuania was under the control of Tsarist Russia. It was a 
brutal, repressive place.
  After World War II, Lithuania became part of the USSR against its 
will, another brutal and repressive regime. But in 1991, Lithuania 
became the first Soviet Republic to declare its independence. In 
response, Soviet tanks under control of Gorbachev rolled in to crush 
the new Lithuanian democracy. I was there before those tanks arrived. 
Their Parliament is called the Seimas. They had put sandbags around the 
outside of it to try to stop the Soviets and their tanks. They took me 
in the back, in a small room off to the side, and showed me their 
arsenal. It consisted of about 10 rifles that had been borrowed from 
farmers in the countryside to try to defend their capital, Vilnius.
  Kids were assembled outside, praying the Rosary in the snow, lighting 
little candles by the sandbags to show the solidarity of the people of 
Lithuania, their determination to survive.
  Soviet tanks rolled in, killed 13 innocent people, and injured dozens 
more. But then, to the world's astonishment--and mine too--Prime 
Minister Mikhail Gorbachev ordered the tanks to withdraw.
  Later, another Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, supported Lithuanian 
independence. Years after his death, Lithuania honored him with an 
award for his commitment to Lithuanian statehood and bilateral 
relations between Lithuania and Russia.
  Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin understood that you can brutalize 
a people who are determined to be free, but you can never defeat them. 
Ultimately, freedom will win. It is a tragedy that Russian President 
Putin cannot or will not learn that same lesson of history today when 
it comes to Ukraine.
  Seventy-seven years ago, an American marine born in Ukraine raised 
the American flag on Iwo Jima. Today, a generation of young Ukrainians 
raised in freedom are holding high the yellow-and-blue flag of their 
own nation and saying: We too want to be free. Our message to them is 
very simple and straightforward: You are not alone.
  Like the shipyard workers in Gdansk and the other members of the 
Polish Solidarity movement who helped bring an end to the decrepit and 
brutal Soviet Union--like the 2 million Estonians, Latvians, and 
Lithuanians who actually physically joined hands to defend freedom 
across their nations--history and the free world will stand with you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.