[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 55 (Tuesday, March 29, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1823-S1824]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Ukraine

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it has been more than a month since Russia 
launched an unprovoked and unwarranted attack against the people of 
Ukraine. In the interim, the world has marveled at the strength, the 
resiliency, and the courage of Ukrainian forces, as well as their 
leadership in President Zelenskyy.
  Ukraine has a real shot at defeating this Russian aggression, but 
that can only happen if it has the weapons and resources it desperately 
needs.
  I recently traveled to Poland and Germany with a bipartisan group of 
Senate colleagues to learn more about what Ukraine needs and the 
challenges our NATO allies are up against.
  Over the course of 3 days, we met with American military leaders and 
diplomats, as well as members of the 82nd Airborne. We spoke with our 
NATO partners, who are supporting both the military and humanitarian 
needs of Ukraine, and we had the opportunity to talk to some of the 
Ukrainian refugees themselves. The primary message we heard, consistent 
message that we heard was, we need more and we need it faster--more 
Stingers, more Javelins, more air defenses, more lethal aid--and they 
reiterated their need for aircraft like the Poland MiGs.
  Statements of support are important, but they do nothing to help 
Ukrainian forces defeat this Russian aggression.
  It was an incredibly powerful and enlightening experience to hear 
directly from the incredible men and women on the ground, and I want to 
thank our friend, Senator Ernst from Iowa, for leading this bipartisan 
congressional delegation. I think it also sent a very strong message to 
our friends and allies in the region that 10 Senators--one-tenth of the 
United States Senate--were willing to make this trip on a bipartisan 
basis. I think we all came back with a deeper understanding of 
Ukraine's needs and a renewed sense of urgency to do everything in our 
power to make it happen.
  Over the last 4 weeks, Russia has bombed Ukrainian hospitals, 
schools, apartment buildings, humanitarian refugee corridors even, and 
even civilians waiting in a bread line. It is pretty clear that we need 
to use every tool available to bolster Ukraine's defense and weaken the 
aggression of the Russian forces. It is not a matter of one or the 
other; we need to do both.
  To support Ukraine, we need to answer the call for more defensive 
weapons. Whether intentionally or not, the administration has given 
Ukraine the bare minimum--just enough to keep it from being completely 
overrun by the Russians but not enough to help it win the war. In other 
words, the Biden administration is propping up Ukraine to keep taking 
further hits rather than giving it the full forces it needs to win the 
fight.
  We need to help Ukraine vanquish Russian forces from its territory 
entirely, not just to extend the length of this war. Actually, by not 
giving Ukraine everything it needs in order to repulse Russian 
aggression, we are playing into Putin's hands, because Putin has 
clearly changed his tactics. From the initial reports of trying to 
encircle Kyiv and perhaps assassinate President Zelenskyy and install a 
puppet government, clearly, Putin has bitten off more than he can chew 
when it comes to invading Ukraine and executing on that original 
mission.
  But now, he is engaged in a war of attrition, flattening Ukrainian 
cities, killing innocent civilians from outside of Ukrainian airspace 
because he is worried about the anti-aircraft capabilities of the 
Ukrainians using things like MANPADS and Stinger missiles.
  Well, time is on Putin's side, and we need to level the playing field 
and actually give the Ukrainians what they need in order to stop this 
war as soon as possible, before further loss of life and further damage 
to their country is done.
  Now, the most effective way to do this--since Ukraine is not a member 
of NATO, we are not going to send troops there, as President Biden has 
said, appropriately so; but we need to ensure that the Ukrainians have 
everything they need in order to do the job themselves. As President 
Zelenskyy has said:

       Ukraine can't shoot down Russian missiles with shotguns and 
     machine guns.

  Unfortunately, there are a lot of roadblocks standing in the way, and 
unfortunately, one of those is the reluctance of the Biden 
administration to quickly and expeditiously get the Ukrainians what 
they need.
  For example, Poland offered to transfer its entire fleet of MiG-29 
fighters to the United States for delivery to Ukraine. Ukrainian forces 
already know how to fly these Russian aircraft, and President Zelenskyy 
assured us that they are desperately needed. But the Biden 
administration rejected the offer after, first, Secretary Blinken 
seemed to give it the green light. The administration changed its mind 
out of fear that they might provoke Putin--once again, playing right 
into his hand. All Putin has to do is rattle his saber to deter the 
United States and its allies from helping Ukraine to the maximum of our 
capability.
  Another big obstacle that the Ukrainians are finding is the redtape 
associated with anything that the Federal Government seems to do. 
Ukraine has provided a detailed list of the resources it needs: 
fighters, anti-aircraft missile systems, more Stingers, more Javelins. 
It is not a list of items they will need next month or the next; it is 
what they need right now in order to survive. The process of getting 
defense articles into Ukrainian soldiers' hands includes some big 
bureaucratic hurdles that not only make it harder to act quickly but 
make it more difficult to send Ukraine the resources they desperately 
need.
  Fortunately, there is strong precedent from World War II that we 
could follow to help expedite the process. During World War II, when 
Britain was hanging on by a thread and the United States was a 
noncombatant in that worldwide war at the time, President Roosevelt 
vowed to transform the United States into the ``arsenal of democracy,'' 
as he called it; and he worked with Congress to pass the Lend-Lease 
Act.
  This legislation allowed the United States to use its industrial 
might to supply Britain and our other allies with the resources they 
needed at a critical time in World War II and without lengthy delays.
  Borrowing inspiration from President Roosevelt, I introduced 
bipartisan legislation with colleagues called the Ukraine Democracy 
Defense Lend-Lease Act, which will expedite getting Ukrainian forces 
the resources they need to win the fight without any unnecessary 
delays.
  I also think that, in addition to the actions by the administration, 
I think it sends a strong bipartisan message of support from this body 
and gives encouragement to our friends in Ukraine, who are fighting for 
their very existence. This legislation authorizes the President to 
enter lend-lease agreements directly with Ukraine and provide Ukrainian 
forces with lethal weapons needed to defend their sovereignty.
  But I think, rather than the piecemeal approach being used by the 
administration, this would open this arsenal of democracy known as the 
American industrial base to provide Ukraine what it needs and give them 
the assurance that, whether they need it today or tomorrow or they need 
it replenished next week, it will be there for them as long as they 
need it.
  I am proud to have worked with a number of colleagues on this 
bipartisan bill, including Senators Cardin, Wicker, Shaheen, and many 
others. So far, more than 20 Senators have cosponsored this 
legislation, and I hope we can pass it without any further delay. This 
is obviously an urgent crisis.
  Putin thought this was going to be like the Taliban taking 
Afghanistan after the United States and NATO's withdrawal. He thought 
he could take Ukraine without firing a bullet--well, so much for 
Putin's plans, his arrogance, and his underestimation of the 
willingness of the Ukrainian people to fight for their own country.
  But we need to pass this legislation and ensure Ukrainian forces that 
they will have what they need when they need it. As I said, we have a 
moral obligation--maybe not a treaty obligation under NATO, but I 
believe we have a moral obligation to support people fighting for their 
very freedom and their very lives in a democratically run country like 
Ukraine.

  The United States and our allies have imposed crippling sanctions on 
Russian businesses, banks, and oligarchs, which

[[Page S1824]]

have sent the country's economy into a tailspin. But in typical Russian 
fashion, they planned for some of these sanctions, and they have found 
loopholes in the current sanction regime. It has taken a page out of 
Venezuela's book by using the purchase and sale of gold to bring in 
cash with which to run their economy. The Russian Federation is buying 
gold to offset the devaluation of the ruble, its currency, and then 
selling that gold in international markets in exchange for high-value 
currency.
  In short, Russia is laundering money through the gold market, and we 
need to put a stop to it. I, along with other colleagues, introduced 
the Stop Russian GOLD Act that would bring an end to this practice. We 
talked to Secretary Yellen, and she agreed that this would be 
supplemental to what the administration has already done unilaterally.
  This legislation would apply sanctions to parties who help Russia 
finance their war by buying or selling this blood gold. That means 
anyone who buys or transports gold from Russia's central bank would be 
the target of sanctions. This would be a huge deterrent to anyone 
considering doing business with Russia and helping them evade 
sanctions. In short, we need to take every possible step to cut the 
financing for Putin's war machine, and this is one additional way to do 
so. Along with the lend-lease bill I mentioned a moment ago, I hope we 
can pass this legislation without further delay.
  There is more we can do to support Ukraine and hit Russia where it 
hurts and to raise the costs associated with its unprovoked and 
unwarranted invasion of Ukraine, but it is past time to continue to 
ramp up the pressure to the maximum ability that we can.
  At this juncture, principled leadership and decisive action are 
absolutely critical. As Leader McConnell put it, President Biden has 
generally done the right thing, but never soon enough. For example, 
last year, the President ignored the immense pressure to sanction the 
Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. He finally, after resisting, imposed those 
sanctions last month.
  As Russian troops mounted on Ukraine's borders late last year, the 
administration withheld millions of dollars in aid for weeks before 
finally releasing it. President Biden disregarded bipartisan calls to 
impose paralyzing sanctions on Russia before the invasion in order to 
try to deter it. Instead, he waited until after the invasion happened 
to try to impose costs on Russia. President Biden ignored calls to stop 
Russian oil imports until it became clear that Congress would pass 
legislation to do just that. Once the handwriting was on the wall, the 
President announced an import ban to try to get ahead of congressional 
action.
  President Biden has been so preoccupied with how Putin might react 
that Putin has been deterring the administration from acting with the 
sort of expediency and dispatch that are absolutely necessary and 
called for. Waiting until the court of public opinion is not the kind 
of leadership that this emergency requires. Mr. President, Ukraine is 
being bludgeoned by Russia every day. We need to act with all 
deliberate speed to get them the additional resources they need, which 
means we need to do it now so they can fight and ultimately prevail.
  The United States may be an ocean away from this conflict, but 
democracy itself is on the front lines. We know President Putin is 
motivated by a vision of restoration of the Russian Empire, after 
having called the fall of the Soviet Union one of the greatest 
geopolitical tragedies in history.
  So we don't know when Putin will stop or if he will stop, which gives 
us the only option of doing everything we can to assist our Ukrainian 
friends from stopping him themselves. We stand in solidarity with our 
partners in Europe, and we are committed to supporting Ukraine as it 
defends its sovereignty.
  So, in the coming days--hopefully in the coming hours--I hope the 
Senate will take action on these bipartisan bills and impose greater 
costs on Russia in the interest of peace and Ukrainian sovereignty.
  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. PETERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                    Nomination of Nani A. Coloretti



 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On page S1824, March 29, 2022, the following appears: NOMINATION 
OF NANA A. COLORETTI
  
  The online Record has been corrected to read: NOMINATION OF NANI 
A. COLORETTI


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 


  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I rise in support of Nani Coloretti's 
nomination to be the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and 
Budget.
  Ms. Coloretti is a dedicated public servant and a proven leader who 
is well qualified to serve as OMB Deputy Director. She has over 20 
years of experience at the Federal, State, and local level executing 
complex government programs, improving service delivery, and managing 
large organizations.
  Ms. Coloretti served with distinction in the Obama administration as 
the Assistant Secretary for Management at the U.S. Department of the 
Treasury and then as the Deputy Secretary at the Department of Housing 
and Urban Development.
  It is absolutely critical that we have Senate-confirmed leaders in 
place at OMB, and I have no doubt that Ms. Coloretti's experience will 
serve the Agency and the American people well.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting Nani Coloretti's 
nomination to be OMB Deputy Director.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.