[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 15, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S420-S421]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                UKRAINE

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the media likes narratives that split 
issues neatly into two opposing positions and often Republican against 
Democrat.
  There is one narrative that has been repeated so often it has become 
conventional wisdom. It holds that President Biden and Democrats in 
Congress have been 100 percent committed to opposing Russia's invasion 
of Ukraine, but Republican support is softening.
  That misleading narrative was briefly scrambled when the 
Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a horribly naive letter calling 
for President Biden to engage in direct diplomacy with Russia.
  Clearly, there are factions on both sides of the aisle hesitant about 
backing a Ukrainian victory. There is also confusion about who in U.S. 
politics is most behind Ukraine winning the war.
  Let's be clear, the most fervent supporters of victory for Ukraine 
are Republicans.
  Meanwhile, the Biden administration gets credit for being all in for 
Ukraine, when in fact it is more accurate to say that it is, at best, 
three-quarters of the way in. And it has been dragged this far by 
events, public opinion, and some of our bolder European allies.
  Speculation about future Republican support for Ukraine is often 
framed in terms of Biden's chances to get the aid he might want, but no 
one asks why President Biden let $2.2 billion worth of authority passed 
by Congress to draw down existing weapons for Ukraine expire on 
September 30 unused.
  I have been pleased for the most part with President Biden's 
rhetorical defense of Ukraine's right to self-defense. But I have been 
puzzled by some of the delays in sending crucial military aid.
  I see signs that the Biden administration is afraid of what will 
happen if Ukraine is helped to push Russia back into its own borders. 
It is understandable to be concerned about the risks when dealing with 
a nuclear armed aggressor. But Putin has backed away from his nuclear 
saber-rattling in the face of Western resolve. And there are even 
greater risks in not stopping Russia's aggression now. In fact, in my 
view, we got where we are now because we acted too timidly in the past. 
Repeating that mistake now will only invite more aggression in the 
future.
  In early February of 2021, shortly after President Biden took office, 
I gave a speech wondering whether President Biden's tough-on-Russia 
rhetoric would be matched by his administration's actions. I reminded 
the Senate that 12 years earlier, in the early days of the Obama-Biden 
administration, then-Vice President Biden went to Munich to deliver a 
speech calling for the United States to hit the ``reset button'' with 
Russia. Two years prior to Biden's speech, at the same annual 
conference, Vladimir Putin had sharply criticized the United States and 
suggested we were a threat to world peace. Moreover, just 6 months 
prior to calling for a ``reset,'' Russia had invaded and occupied a 
significant portion of the Republic of Georgia, which it still occupies 
to this day.
  Calling on the United States to ``hit the reset button,'' as 
Secretary of State Clinton later symbolically did with Russian Foreign 
Minister Lavrov, strongly suggested that the breakdown in relations 
with Russia was somehow our fault. President Reagan's Ambassador to the 
U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick, famously identified a tendency among some of 
her fellow Democrats to ``blame America first.'' I put the shameful 
Obama-Biden Russia reset policy squarely in that tradition. Relations 
with Russia became bad because Putin saw the United States as an 
obstacle to his imperial aspirations. That is not our fault. I am 
concerned that some corners of the Biden administration have not fully 
dispensed with the naivety behind the so-called Russia reset.
  Let's recall just how mistaken the Obama-Biden Russia policy was. 
Many people remember the arrest of Anna Chapman and nine other deep 
cover Russian spies living as normal Americans. The FBI had been 
monitoring this spy network until agents saw signs that Chapman 
suspected the jig was up. The FBI needed to arrest the whole network 
before she had a chance to warn them and they all fled the country.
  However, it just so happened that Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian 
President--at least in name--was in town. Medvedev was meeting with 
President Obama about all the areas of cooperation between the U.S. and 
Russia made possible by the reset, plus a photo op eating hamburgers 
together. To not upset this chummy meeting, the arrests of the Russian 
spies were postponed until Medvedev was on a plane back to Moscow.
  Remember, in order to get around term limits, Vladimir Putin drafted 
his loyalist, Medvedev, to be the puppet President until Putin could 
run for President again. This was a transparent shell game. But there 
was naive hopeful talk that Medvedev was a reformer who might steer 
Russia in a more democratic, pro-Western direction. Anyone following 
Medvedev's recent rhetoric about Ukraine knows that is far from true. 
He remains totally loyal to Putin and has been serving as his 
rhetorical attack dog.
  When Russia invaded and occupied parts of Ukraine in 2014, the Obama 
administration had angry words for Putin. The reset was on the rocks. 
But the practical response of the Obama administration was to deny 
Ukraine defensive weapons, sending only non-lethal aid. President Obama 
urged Ukraine not to fight to avoid escalation and to settle the matter 
diplomatically.
  Russia has a history of using negotiations to create frozen 
conflicts. Russia will snatch a piece of land, then demand a ceasefire 
and negotiations, allowing it to keep the ill-gotten gains 
indefinitely.
  Obviously, maintaining the status quo with Russia occupying parts of 
Ukraine did not result in a lasting peace. It just led Putin to think 
he could get away with it again. Perhaps he would have if he hadn't 
gone big.
  Having succeeded in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, Putin 
figured he might as well go big and grab the whole country. It hasn't 
worked out for him as he hoped, but he hasn't given up on his initial 
goals either, even now. Those who had put hope in resetting relations 
with Russia have been mugged by reality.
  But behind the current tough talk, I worry that some in the Biden 
administration, maybe President Biden himself, still cling to a hope 
that we can reach an understanding with Putin. Like Jeane Kirkpatrick, 
who remained a Democrat throughout her service in the Reagan 
administration, there are many Democrats today who have a clear-eyed 
view of Russia, including many colleagues in this body. I just wish 
President Biden would listen to them rather than those in his 
administration who let concerns about antagonizing Putin keep us from 
doing everything we can to save Ukrainian lives.
  The administration has eventually relented and given Ukraine many

[[Page S421]]

weapons systems it had repeatedly said ``no'' to. But there are still 
weapons we could transfer to Ukraine today that would bring the end of 
the war closer and save lives; yet the administration is refusing 
because of fear of ``escalation.''
  We have seen that our HIMARS system has allowed the Ukrainian 
military to destroy ammunition depots and supply lines, making it 
possible for the Ukrainians to liberate significant territory. We have 
seen the videos of Ukrainian soldiers greeted with tears of joy by 
liberated civilians who have endured brutal Russian occupation.
  However, we did not transfer the HIMARS until June, months into the 
war. And we denied the Ukrainians longer range missiles for the HIMARS. 
There are reports that we even modified the systems before delivery to 
make sure they could not shoot longer range missiles. This is 
apparently based on a misguided concern about threatening Russian 
territory.
  Recently, the Biden administration has announced it will send Ukraine 
the ground-launched small-diameter bomb, which is double the range of 
the current HIMARS rockets, but which still fall far short of the range 
of the Army Tactical Missile System that Ukraine has been asking for.
  Despite its success in retaking some of its own territory, Russia 
cannot seriously claim to be concerned about a Ukrainian invasion. 
Ukraine is the one that is being brutally invaded and occupied by 
Russia. And Ukraine has every right under international law to target 
Russian bases from which Russia is launching missiles at electrical 
plants and apartment buildings. Moreover, as the Lithuanian Prime 
Minister pointed out on her most recent visit to the United States, 
Ukraine needs these longer range missiles to attack Russian positions 
inside Ukraine itself.
  The most clear-eyed leadership about the war is coming from those who 
know Russia the best, like the leaders of our Baltic allies. When 
Americans see Iranian-made drones and Russian cruise missiles crashing 
into apartment buildings, killing old women and young children, our 
hearts break. But knowing that many of these attacks are being launched 
from Russian-occupied Crimea, within range of the missiles we have been 
denying to Ukraine, makes the death and destruction even more 
heartbreaking.
  The more advanced weapons Ukraine can obtain quickly, the faster the 
war will end. The U.S. and many of our allies have now announced 
delivery of tanks to Ukraine, something previously off the table. But 
it isn't clear if this decision was taken in time for the tanks to 
arrive in sufficient quantity to play a role in a spring 
counteroffensive or to help Ukraine defend against Russia's renewed 
offensive efforts, which are underway now. We should not be afraid of 
Ukraine winning.
  President Macron of France has expressed concern about humiliating 
Putin. It is true that a defeated Putin would be dangerous, but a 
victorious Putin would surely be even more dangerous. Precisely because 
Russia has long been dangerous, we have built up military stockpiles in 
case we need to defend our allies in Europe from a possible attack by 
Russia.
  Some of those stockpiles are now being used very effectively to 
degrade the Russian military and the threat it poses. This is being 
done by the Ukrainian military without a single American soldier in 
battle.
  Some people have expressed concerns that we could give too much 
military aid, reducing what we need in case we have to fight a war. 
Obviously, we need to ensure our own potential defense needs are taken 
care of. I have been following closely what we have left and what we 
have given. Our military stockpiles are not public, but I can say that 
do not see any cause for alarm. Keep in mind that the level of stocks 
our military has determined we need is based on possibly having to 
fight the Russian military, but the Russian military as it existed 
before the full scale invasion on February 24. Since the Ukrainians 
have significantly diminished the Russian military, the threat to the 
United States is greatly reduced. So our requirements for ammunition 
and equipment are also now also lower.
  The Russian war against Ukraine has also shaken us from our peacetime 
complacency about the state of our defense industrial base. Efforts are 
now underway to rejuvenate our ability to replenish our stockpiles of 
arms and ammunition. This will help not only with our efforts to aid 
Ukraine, but will greatly improve U.S. readiness to deal with potential 
threats in the near future, such as from China. There are also 
understandable concerns about the cost to the American taxpayers of 
replacing the equipment given to Ukraine.
  Aside from the fact that some of this would be replaced with upgraded 
versions soon anyway, the cost benefit of a Ukrainian soldier 
destroying a Russian tank with one of our Javelins is enormous. The 
Russian military is being destroyed for pennies on the dollar and zero 
cost in American blood. Then just think of what the cost in American 
blood and treasure would be if Russia did attack one of our NATO 
allies.
  And make no mistake, Russia's imperial ambitions do not stop with 
part, or even all of Ukraine. Estonia's Prime Minister often points out 
``If Putin wins, or if he even has the view that he has won this war, 
his appetite will only grow.'' That is exactly what happened after 
Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
  Putin's background is in the overlapping world of the KGB and Russian 
organized crime. In that world, only strength is respected, and 
weakness invites aggression. Let's not repeat past mistakes. Preventing 
future Russian aggression will greatly enhance American security and 
avoid major costs down the road. That makes it in America's national 
interest to support a decisive Ukrainian victory as soon as possible.

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