[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 22 (Thursday, February 3, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S510-S512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Russia
Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, there is a gathering storm in Europe. I rise
today to discuss the brewing crisis posed by Russia's aggression and,
tragically, how the reckless actions of President Biden have enabled
it.
This morning, all 100 Senators participated in a classified briefing,
where we heard from the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State
and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We heard about the
magnitude of the threat from Russia.
We stand here today with Europe facing the greatest peril it has
faced since 1945. These are ominous and chilling times, and we did not
arrive here by accident. Right now, 150,000 Russian troops are directly
on the border of Ukraine, poised to invade, with more troops and more
tanks arriving each and every day. It was also reported this week that
Russia has sent additional blood supplies to its military equipment on
the Ukraine border, another ominous signal that Russia plans to invade.
Ukraine, and indeed the region and the world, find ourselves in this
crisis because of President Biden's weakness, because of his
appeasement, because of his surrender to Putin over the last year. And
now, instead of rising to meet this moment with strength and resolve,
President Biden continues to shrink from it with more weakness than
appeasement.
One question that was raised in the briefing this morning is, Why
didn't this happen in 2017? Why didn't it happen in 2018? Why didn't it
happen in 2019? Why didn't it happen in 2020? What changed?
I will suggest what changed. What changed is the occupant of the Oval
Office, who has demonstrated weakness and appeasement virtually from
the moment he rested his hand upon the Bible. It is a pattern.
As a result of President Biden's weakness and appeasement, this
administration gave Afghanistan to the Taliban and 13 American
servicemembers were tragically murdered.
As a result of President Biden's weakness and appeasement, this
administration is ramping up to give a nuclear arsenal to the Ayatollah
in Iran. The very same Ayatollah who chants ``Death to Israel'' and
``Death to America,'' the Biden administration is preparing to
facilitate that Ayatollah having the weapons of mass murder to carry
out those pledges.
As a result of President Biden's weakness and appeasement, the Biden
administration is in the process of ceding Taiwan to Xi. President
Biden has even banned any Taiwanese official from displaying a
Taiwanese military uniform or displaying a Taiwanese flag on U.S.
Government property. Why? Because it offends the communist Government
in China.
And, again, right now, today, as a result of President Biden's
weakness and appeasement, the Biden administration is in the process of
abandoning Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.
Putin didn't just wake up one day and decide to invade Ukraine. He
has wanted to invade Ukraine for years. And he did so in 2014, but he
stopped short of a full invasion then because he couldn't endanger
Ukraine's energy infrastructure, which Putin needs to get Russian
natural gas to Europe. So Russia formed a consortium to build Nord
Stream 2, a pipeline stretching directly from Russia to Germany under
the sea so that Russian gas could circumvent Ukraine altogether.
We have long known about the dangers Nord Stream 2 poses. That is
why, in the last few years, Democrats and Republicans here in the
Senate have come together repeatedly and taken bipartisan actions,
passing sanctions on Nord Stream 2 with overwhelming majorities.
I led that effort, drafting the Cruz-Shaheen sanctions. They were
supported by every Democrat in this Chamber. They passed
overwhelmingly, and they worked. They succeeded. They stopped the
pipeline literally the day they were signed into law.
The story of how that happened is well known to every Senator in this
Chamber, as is the story of how the new President--President Biden--
inexplicably and catastrophically decided to squander that hard-fought
geopolitical victory and turn a victory for America into a loss for
America and our allies.
Many a Democratic Senator standing on this Senate floor has quietly
expressed frustration, confusion, anger why the Biden administration
would surrender to Russia and give away the victory we had won.
It is not only the decision to surrender on Nord Stream 2 and give
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Putin the pipeline that enables him to invade Ukraine that led to this
day. Also, for the past year, President Biden has repeatedly
systematically undermined our Ukrainian allies in the face of Russian
aggression to placate Putin.
And it is worth noting, Biden does this for the same reason he
undermines Taiwan. He undermines Taiwan to placate the Chinese
communists. He undermines Ukraine to placate Putin. To placate Putin,
the Biden administration has repeatedly withheld military aid packages
to Ukraine. Other times, he has withheld diplomatic support to pressure
our Ukrainian allies into supporting his misguided Nord Stream 2
surrender to Putin. Biden's actions for the past year have emboldened
Putin, who acted on that weakness and has put Europe on the brink of
war.
So what can we do right now today to promote peace and stop an
invasion?
Well, our Ukrainian allies have told us again and again what we can
do and what we should do. All we have to do in the Senate is listen to
our friends in Ukraine who are on the frontline: No. 1, sanction Nord
Stream 2 immediately, right now, today; No. 2, give the Ukrainians
weapons so that they can defend themselves.
Just last week, the chairman of Ukraine's Parliament wrote a letter
to the Senate about exactly this. If you have not read the letter from
the Ukrainian Parliament, I commend it to you. It is an extraordinary
letter from a nation on the brink of annihilation at the hands of
Russian aggression. I am going to read parts of that letter right now
because it is worth quoting extensively.
The chairman of Ukraine's Parliament writes:
Nord Stream 2 is a source of multidimensional security,
political and economic threats to Ukraine and Europe as a
whole. It is not an exaggeration that Nord Stream 2 is no
less an existential threat to Ukraine's security and
democracy than the Russian troops on our border. This
pipeline must be stopped and the only way to prevent the
completion is to use all the tools available to do that.
The letter continues:
So far, the decision to waive sanctions against Nord Stream
2 in May 2021--
That was a decision by President Biden--
has emboldened Russia and caused Moscow to conclude that the
United States may accommodate its hostile intentions.
The letter continues:
After a clear majority of the U.S. Senate voted 55-44 in
favor of imposing immediate sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, on
January 13, 2022, it is essential that Congress include
immediate sanctions against Nord Stream 2 AG in any new
legislation to undercut options for Russia's aggressive
actions on Ukraine.
The letter goes on, asking for a ``clear trigger for the instant and
unqualified imposition of any sanctions that are not imposed
immediately upon enactment of the legislation,'' arguing that ``while
some sanctions--like sanctions against Nord Stream 2--should be imposed
immediately to demonstrate to Moscow that the United States is, indeed,
serious about serious measures, including removing Russia from SWIFT,
the trigger of these future sanctions must be clear in order to be
effective.''
The letter continues:
A ``significant escalation in hostilities,'' whose ``aim or
effect of undermining, overthrowing, or dismantling the
Government of Ukraine, occupying the territory of Ukraine, or
interfering with the sovereignty or territorial integrity of
Ukraine'' is too high of a threshold to deter Russian
aggression or affect the Kremlin's cost-benefit calculus.
The Ukrainians are crystal clear in this letter. The sanctions on
Nord Stream 2 that Biden waived last year, in the words of the
Ukrainians, ``emboldened Russia'' and allowed Putin to think ``the
United States may accommodate its hostile intentions.'' In other words,
because of Biden's weakness and appeasement on Nord Stream 2, Putin
thinks there are no serious consequences to invading Ukraine.
So the Ukrainians are asking--they are begging of the U.S. Senate--
for immediate sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Do not abandon them. They cry
at their hour of need.
And they also state in the letter that ``expedited and higher-impact
security assistance, including air defense, anti-ship, and anti-armor
capabilities'' is what they need.
That is what the Ukrainians have asked for, but President Biden and
most of the Senate Democrats aren't doing what our Ukrainian allies
have called for. Instead, they are looking to pile appeasement on top
of appeasement, and they are doing it in secret. The Biden
administration has offered Putin sweeping concessions on NATO when it
comes to troops, when it comes to missiles, when it comes to military
exercises. They transmitted this appeasement to Putin in secret and
refused to let Americans see the details.
I have seen the details, and I can tell you, they are deeply
worrying. The reason the public hasn't seen them is the administration
has placed them in a secure SCIF. They are not classified, mind you.
They are merely ``confidential,'' which is Washington speak for
politically embarrassing, and the administration doesn't want to defend
the substance of it.
That is why I am introducing legislation called the PARTNER Act,
which would prevent President Biden from endangering our longtime
allies and frontline countries in NATO by prohibiting him from removing
American troops from the countries that border Russia--meaning Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland--longtime allies. My
legislation will prevent President Biden from offering yet more
appeasement to Russia, from offering for America to abandon Eastern
Europe to Russia, and from allowing President Biden to fatally
undermine NATO.
I also want to address the fact that some think we should stand down
and not resist Russian aggression because they say Biden will send
American troops into Ukraine and start a shooting war with Russia if
Putin invades. I want to be clear and unequivocal: We should not have
American soldiers in Ukraine. Under no circumstances should we send our
sons and daughters to die to defend Ukraine from Russia. If the Biden
administration proposes that because their foreign policy is collapsing
around that, I will vigorously oppose such a move and the vast majority
of Americans do, as well.
But, critically, the Ukrainians aren't asking for that. Ukraine is
not asking for a single American soldier. Ukraine is saying, Do two
things: Sanction Nord Stream 2, the pipeline that enables the Russian
aggression; and provide them with the military weapons so that they,
the Ukrainians, can fight to defend their own Nation from the invading
Russian Army.
So Americans are asking: Why should we care what happens to Ukraine
or what happens to NATO countries that border Russia?
Let me be clear. There are some who justify American foreign policy
and say we have an amorphous obligation to protect democracies; we have
an obligation to protect international norms.
I think all of that is bunk. We have an obligation to protect the
national security of the United States of America. The Commander in
Chief's obligation is to keep Americans safe.
What does that mean in this context?
Well, I want to make four points. No. 1, what Putin is trying to do
is reassemble the USSR. If he succeeds in doing so, it would be
catastrophic for global stability and American security. Putin and
Russia are an enemy of America. When the Soviet Union was bigger,
stronger, mightier, and with a bigger military, the lives of Americans
and the lives of our allies were in far greater jeopardy. It is
overwhelmingly in America's interest to prevent Putin from reassembling
the Soviet Union because we do not wish for our enemies to become
stronger and use that strength against us.
No. 2, Putin is trying to seize control of energy. If he is
successful, it will be felt by Americans filling up their cars with gas
or trying to heat their homes in the winter. We have already seen what
Putin has done with Nord Stream 2, and he is not going to stop there.
No. 3, we have a formal obligation--a commitment the United States
made--to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. Why is that? Well,
after Ukraine successfully declared independence from the USSR in 1991,
the United States signed an agreement, an agreement called the Budapest
Memorandum on Security Assurances. With the Budapest Memorandum, under
the terms of it, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons. Ukraine
had the third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons on the face of the
planet. America
[[Page S512]]
agreed, quite reasonably, that the world would be safer if Ukraine did
not have nukes, and the brandnew Ukrainian Government agreed and gave
up their nuclear weapons, making America safer and the world safer.
But the Ukrainian Government did not do so for nothing. It did so in
exchange for explicit assurances that the United States would protect
Ukraine's territorial integrity. Let me reiterate that. The United
States made a formal commitment to the Ukrainians that if they gave up
their nuclear weapons, we would help them protect themselves. The
Ukrainians are asking us to honor our commitment in the form--and they
are very specific about what they are asking--in the form of immediate
sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and weapons so they can defend themselves.
We need to send them that lethal aid, the kind of firepower the
Ukrainians need to defend themselves, not the blankets and teddy bears
and meals that the Obama administration sent the last time Russia
invaded Ukraine.
No. 4, we have treaty obligations to NATO countries on the frontlines
of Putin's aggression. Putin wants NATO to withdraw foreign forces,
including American forces from the countries that border Russia--from
Bulgaria, from Poland, from Romania, from Estonia, from Latvia, from
Lithuania. But to withdraw American forces from NATO would be seen as--
in fact, it would be--an abdication of our commitment to NATO. It would
either shatter the NATO alliance, the most successful alliance in
modern history, or it would put into motion dynamics that would
ultimately shatter NATO, which is why, as I mentioned, I am introducing
the PARTNER Act, to prevent the Biden administration--their weakness
and appeasement--from destroying NATO and undermining American
security.
On every one of these four points, Biden has demonstrated weakness
and appeasement to Putin. And I would note that you might ask: Why
should America honor our commitments? Why should we honor our
commitment in the Budapest Memorandum, honor our treaty commitments to
the NATO countries? Because one of the ways we protect American
national security is when we make an agreement with a country--when we
make a formal, legal agreement--we honor our commitments. And we want
countries to know that we stand by our friends, that we stand by our
word, that our treaties mean something, because if countries learn that
under weak and feckless Presidents, our treaties--our formal, binding,
legal documents--aren't worth the paper they are written on, it
undermines the ability of any President of the United States to
negotiate agreements with our friends and allies that keep Americans
safe.
When Ronald Reagan was standing up and confronting the ``Evil
Empire,'' we saw the virtues of peace through strength.
Biden's foreign policy seems to invite war through weakness. There
are actions we can take today, like sanctioning Nord Stream 2, like
sending lethal aid to Ukraine, like committing to keep our NATO forces
in countries that border Russia.
All of these actions would show Putin that the United States will
stand up to aggression and defend our national interests. We should
take these actions without delay. We should stand in bipartisan unity
in support of American national security, in opposition to Russian
aggression. If we do not, if the Senate acquiesces to Biden's weakness
and appeasement and Russia invades Ukraine and, weeks from now, there
are Russian tanks in the streets of Kyiv, Ukraine and Europe and
America and the world will reap the whirlwind.
This is our opportunity to act. I pray that we take it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cortez Masto). The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I would ask through the Chair how long
the Senator from Texas might be.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I defer to the Senator from Texas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thank you.
The Senator from Texas is recognized when he is ready.
Mr. CORNYN. I would yield my----
Mr. BENNET. The Senator from Texas was yielding patiently, and just
for clarity of the record, I yield to the senior Senator from the State
of Texas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas is recognized.