[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 15, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1159-S1161]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Ukraine

  Mr. President, moving to a different topic, what does courage look 
like? What does the face of courage look like? Well, we see it every 
day on television out of Ukraine. We see individuals leaving their 
regular lives, grabbing a rifle to defend their nation, and being 
prepared to die in the process. That is the face of courage.
  We see the face of courage in the President of Ukraine, an 
extraordinary individual, who once was a rising standup comedian and 
now is a rising standup President for his nation of Ukraine, risking 
his life every day to stay in Kyiv and to be there to inspire his 
people to resist Putin's barbaric invasion of that country.
  We are going to see that tomorrow in the joint session of Congress. 
It is the first Zoom joint session of Congress that I have ever been in 
attendance, and I am glad we are doing it. For the last several weeks, 
I have been in touch

[[Page S1160]]

through Zoom conference calls with President Zelenskyy. He is a 
courageous man.
  But courage is not limited to Ukraine. An event occurred yesterday in 
Moscow which bears our approval and consideration. On state-run 
television in Moscow, a woman was reading the propaganda that was on 
the show, when an employee of that same channel burst on to the set and 
interrupted the news broadcast.
  Her name is--and I am going to try to pronounce her Russian name 
here--Marina Ovsyannikova--Marina Ovsyannikova. That is her, standing 
there holding a sign saying ``no war.''
  She was wearing a yellow and blue necklace, the colors of Ukraine.
  And this woman, an actual editor at Channel One in Moscow, shouted:

       Stop the war. No to war.

  Their sign says:

       Don't believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here.

  It was signed in English:

       Russians against war.

  Now, this might have been something just viewed as a disruption, but 
in Russia under Putin, her actions constitute a crime.
  What has happened to her? Well, we don't know. She disappeared 
shortly after this appearance on television.
  Under a new law, she could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison 
for using the word ``war'' to describe Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
  But she was unbowed. Before her protest, she recorded a video which 
has been released through human rights group. I want to read for you 
what she said in this video:

       Regrettably, for a number of years, I worked on Channel One 
     and worked on Kremlin propaganda. I am very ashamed of this 
     right now.

  She said:

       Ashamed that I was allowed to tell lies from the television 
     screen. Ashamed that I allowed the zombification of the 
     Russian people. We were silent in 2014 when this was just 
     beginning. We did not go out to protest when the Kremlin 
     poisoned [opposition leader Alexei] Navalny.''

  She continued:

       We are just silently watching this anti-human regime and 
     now the whole world has turned away from us.

  She told her countrymen and women:

       Only we have the power to stop all this madness. Go to the 
     protests. Don't be afraid of anything. They can't imprison us 
     all.

  I believe that if more ordinary Russians knew the truth about what 
Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine, they would join her protest.
  Russian media aren't reporting the truth: that Russia has lost more 
soldiers in the first 20 days of its invasion of Ukraine than America 
lost in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Russian media aren't 
reporting on Russia's war crimes in Ukraine, like the horrific shelling 
last week of a children's and maternity hospital in Mariupol.
  Yesterday, we learned that the injured woman on the stretcher in this 
photo had died, as had her baby. It was a type of outrage which the 
American people will never forget and shouldn't. This was an 
intentional target, this maternity hospital, by Putin. He has bombed 
health clinics and hospitals across Ukraine. That is the type of person 
he is. That is the type of war he wages. That is the type of war 
criminal he is. Every one of these attacks is a violation of 
international law.
  At least three facilities that serve women and children have been 
subject to attack, and innocent civilians have been killed. Throughout 
Ukraine, continued explosions and the threat of shelling have forced 
hospital staff to move critically ill children and other patients into 
bomb shelters in the basements. Children suffering from cancer, wartime 
injuries, and other serious conditions have been forced to move to 
western Ukraine by bus and train.
  Throughout Ukraine, critical medications--insulin, cancer drugs, and 
other infusions--are in short supply, but the world is responding. We 
have seen an outpouring of revulsion against Putin and his war crimes. 
But we have also seen an outpouring of compassion, as governments and 
ordinary citizens step forward to aid Ukraine.
  Last Wednesday, a group of nine doctors and nurses from the Chicago 
area flew to Poland to volunteer to help Ukrainians fleeing the war. 
They brought with them 167 suitcases filled with medicines and medical 
equipment.
  Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, IL, donated nearly 
$500,000 in equipment--all paid for in donations raised in just 72 
hours.
  The group included Ukrainian Americans, Lithuanian Americans, Polish 
Americans, Syrian Americans, and Pakistani Americans. The trip was 
organized by a nonprofit group called MedGlobal. It was founded by a 
man who is my friend, and I am proud to say that, an amazing Syrian-
American doctor named Dr. Zaher Sahloul.
  Over the years, this organization has taken medical missions to 
Syria, Burma, and other places torn by the conflicts that do emerge in 
these areas.
  On this trip, the doctors and nurses spent 2 days in Lviv, providing 
medical care alongside Ukrainian doctors. They then returned to the 
Polish side of the border to provide aid to refugees in local 
hospitals.
  Let me say a word about the refugees who are currently inside Ukraine 
and leaving Ukraine. The estimate now is that a nation with a 
population of 40 million, Ukraine, has more than 3 million refugees. 
Let me put that in perspective for a moment. Three million refugees in 
a matter of 20 days of war--can you imagine? If it were the United 
States and a similar proportion of the population, it would mean moving 
the population of the State of Texas out of the United States in 3 
weeks. That is what is happening because of the terrible war and 
invasion of Vladimir Putin.
  Providing medical assistance doesn't stop with what I have read into 
the Record. Chicago is also blessed with one of the finest pediatric 
hospitals in America, Lurie Children's Hospital. Lurie Children's has 
shipped 1\1/4\ tons--1\1/4\ tons--of medical supplies and medical 
equipment to Ukraine.
  Staff at Lurie Children's are now exploring with Federal officials 
how they might help bring some of Ukraine's most critically ill 
children to the United States for needed medical treatment. The 
hospital spokesman called me last week to say that she was initiating 
an effort nationwide in the United States to ask every 
children's hospital to pitch in. If there are kids in Ukraine or out of 
Ukraine now as refugees who are in desperate need of medical care, 
America is going to be there.

  I am so proud of Lurie Children's and all the other children's 
hospitals across the United States. They are exploring the same 
opportunity and challenge. I applaud America's children's hospitals for 
answering the call over the next several days to provide medical 
support for pediatric patients in critical need. I urge our Federal 
Agencies to assist in logistical challenges. Together, we can save 
these children's lives.
  Tomorrow morning, a truly heroic leader, Ukrainian President 
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will address a virtual joint session of Congress. 
He will ask Congress and the American people to stand with Ukraine, to 
defend democracy and human dignity and to bring this horrific war to an 
end. We must answer that call. This fight is not Ukraine's alone; this 
is a fight for democracy and the right of people to choose their own 
leaders, decide their own destiny.
  I will close with these thoughts--one from Garry Kasparov, a chess 
grandmaster, Russian expatriate, and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin.
  Yesterday, Garry Kasparov tweeted:

       Letting Putin crush Ukraine and murder thousands of 
     innocents in a European war of conquest will redefine the 
     world order. So would stopping him. We choose by action or 
     inaction which world we want to live in.

  America should choose to stand with Ukraine.
  Slava, Ukraini.
  One last point. Zelenskyy made a very important observation when it 
came to Putin and his future. I don't know if there are enough brave 
Russians to stand up to him--I hope there are--to depose him from power 
in that country, but if they don't, we are naive to believe that 
Ukraine is the end of his conquest agenda. He wants to restore the 
Soviet Union, and many of us know what that means--the Baltics. It 
means Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as President Zelenskyy reminded 
us, would be the next target. They are small. They are near Russian 
populations. They are near Belarus, which has become a pawn of Vladimir 
Putin, and they are vulnerable.
  The only thing standing between the Baltics and subjugation by 
Vladimir Putin is the document known as the

[[Page S1161]]

NATO charter. It is an agreement of an alliance where every nation 
under that flag will stand to defend the other under attack.
  Most of us don't remember, but after 9/11/2001, the NATO allies came 
together and said that the United States had been attacked under 
article 5 and that they were willing to defend us if the terrorism 
continued. That is the kind of solidarity which we needed then and 
which the world needs now.
  The NATO alliance was, unfortunately, weakened under the last 
President, but they have come around now to become a powerful force.
  Just last week on Thursday, 10 of the Ambassadors from European 
nations gathered in a room and talked to us about their solidarity 
behind our effort to support Ukraine. It was a positive meeting, a good 
feeling, and I am glad that the NATO forces understand their 
responsibility and are prepared to defend these countries that are 
involved.
  There is one last point I want to make because it is so outrageous, I 
believe it should be reported. The question really comes down to an 
interview of Donald Trump, the former President of the United States, 
by Jeanine Pirro on FOX television. He called Putin's invasion of 
Ukraine a project to rebuild a Soviet empire that had been, in the 
words of Donald Trump, ``full of love.'' Full of love, a Soviet empire?
  Unfortunately, the former President has no knowledge of history, nor 
does he have any understanding as to what happened to the countries 
under the subjugation of a Soviet empire, how they were forcefully 
brought into that alliance, which they never wanted to be part of. He 
obviously doesn't recall that 4 million Ukrainians died in the famines 
of the 1930s under Joseph Stalin's Soviet rule.
  At one point, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire. 
For Donald Trump, it is ``full of love.'' How can he be so far wrong 
and not see the obvious--that Putin is not the spiritual man he was 
once identified as? He is a ruthless war criminal, and innocent people 
are paying the price for his outrages.