[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 77 (Monday, May 9, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2370-S2371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Ukraine

  Madam President, the last few days have revealed a jarring contrast 
in human decency regarding the war in Ukraine.
  Yesterday, on Mother's Day, First Lady Jill Biden visited the 
Ukrainian First Lady, Olena Zelenska, in Ukraine, in a moving display 
of solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
  This is an amazing photograph. It is a moment in history I am not 
sure any of us thought we would ever see. Here is our First Lady, who 
manages to finally meet with the First Lady of the President in 
Ukraine. There was some risk associated with it, but thank goodness, 
everything went well, and at the end of the day, the message was clear: 
America is standing by Ukraine. It is standing by the First Family of 
Ukraine with their amazing show of courage.
  The two First Ladies met at a school that was converted to help 
displaced Ukrainians because of the Russian onslaught. During her visit 
there and at stops just before in Romania and Slovakia, Dr. Jill Biden 
met with Ukrainian refugees, including many exhausted kids and parents 
who were on the verge of tears from the horrors that they had lived 
through.
  She poignantly remarked of her visits in the three nations and said:

       I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people 
     that this war has to stop, and this war has been brutal.

  Now contrast that humane display, that display of human compassion 
and grace by the First Lady of the United States, with the actions of 
Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin yesterday and today.
  Over the weekend, Putin's forces continued brutal assaults on 
civilian targets in Ukraine, including shelling a school used as a bomb 
shelter, which left 60 or more buried and presumed dead. Putin 
disgraced himself and the millions of Russians who suffered horribly 
during World War II by crudely comparing their struggle to his 
unprovoked, unconscionable assault on Ukraine. In cynically using 
Russia's World War II Victory Day, Putin described his war in Ukraine 
as ``sacred'' and necessary for the ``security of our homeland.'' This 
is delusional. It is Putin who is now acting in the same way as those 
who brutally attacked the Soviet Union during World War II.
  In one of my first visits to the Soviet Union as a person, as just a 
civilian on the street who went on a tour and then again as a 
Congressman, I was struck by how meaningful World War II was to the 
people of Russia. It was not uncommon for brides and grooms to go to 
the monument of those who fought and died in World War II in the cities 
of Russia on the days of their weddings and have photographs taken in 
memory of the people who were lost in their families decades before.
  But Putin has now turned the tables, sadly, on this event with the 
just incredible, delusional comments that he makes. Here is Putin, 
reducing Ukrainian towns to rubble if they refuse to surrender, 
forcibly deporting as many as 300,000 Ukrainians to Russia, trying to 
erase the Ukrainian identity from seized areas, and praising Russian 
military units that are accused of blatant war crimes.
  A Washington Post editorial on Friday hauntingly noted the historic 
parallel when they said:

       Of the mass deportations carried out by the Soviet regime 
     during the early 1930s as part of the campaign by Joseph 
     Stalin to subdue Ukraine through political repression . . . 
     they used famine.

  Today, it is Vladimir Putin who is using terror, murder, and 
starvation against millions of innocent Ukrainians.
  This war is monstrous. It is a threat not only to Ukraine but to the 
peace and stability of the entire world. If we are going to pay homage 
to the men and women who fought and to some who died--to the many who 
died--in World War II, we should remember that they did it to stop 
Hitler and to stop the Japanese in their efforts to conquer parts of 
the world.
  We thought in the 20th century, at the end of World War II, we had 
finally turned the page on that sort of conduct. Vladimir Putin is a 
reminder that those forces of evil are still in the world.
  Putin, reportedly, even wanted the Russian military to hold a victory 
parade in the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, but the 
parade plans had to be canceled because Ukrainian soldiers continue to 
fight against the Russian invaders. Ukrainians just won't give up. And 
the city itself has been virtually bombed to dust--hardly the backdrop 
Putin wanted for his evil pretense of a celebration.

  Well, I have a message for Vladimir Putin on this Victory Day: You 
have disgraced yourself by selfishly exploiting the memory of those 
Russians who protected your nation in World War II, and you do it to 
defend your own war crimes today. You will not erase Ukraine. You have 
only strengthened Ukrainian people and the collective will of the 
global community to defend them against Russian tyranny.
  There will be a Victory Day parade one day in Ukraine, and it will be 
to honor the valiant Ukrainians who sacrificed on the frontlines to 
defend freedom and democracy in Ukraine and worldwide.
  I am proud that the United States, through President Biden and a 
bipartisan Congress, are standing behind the Ukrainian people at this 
moment when they are being tested. We are going into the third and 
fourth week of this Russian onslaught, and they still show remarkable 
achievement and resistance.
  We are going to stand by them. We are going to defend them. We are 
going to let the world know the brutality that Vladimir Putin has 
visited on these brave people.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page S2371]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.