[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 32 (Thursday, February 16, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S442-S443]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Ukraine

  Mr. President, on February 25, 1 year ago, award-winning Chicago Chef 
Tony Priolo woke up early to work out on his elliptical machine. He 
turned on his TV, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing: bombs, 
gunfire, convoys of armored vehicles. Russia's war on Ukraine had 
begun.
  Chef Priolo thought of a young Ukrainian woman who had worked for a 
summer in one of his restaurants and wondered whether she and her 
family were safe. He asked himself: What can I do? And then he had an 
idea.
  He contacted the Illinois Restaurant Association and 30 of his 
closest chef friends in the area and said: Let's use our talents to 
feed people and to feed the people of Ukraine who have been forced from 
their homes by this terrible war.
  Less than 3 weeks later, chefs representing 70 restaurants around 
Chicago dished out meals to a crowd of 2,000 people at an event called 
Chicago Chefs Cook for Ukraine. They sold out a rather large venue 
known as Navy Pier in Chicago.
  They raised $650,000 in that one night and another $200,000 after. 
They donated all of it to the World Central Kitchen, the nonprofit 
organization founded by Chef and noted humanitarian Jose Andres. I had 
a chance to meet Chef Andres just a few weeks before the start of the 
war in Ukraine.
  I love that man. He is always so full of ideas and hope and 
determination. The chef came to America from Spain when he was 21 years 
old, with nothing but a set of knives and 50 bucks. He is now an 
American citizen with an empire of award-winning restaurants.
  Through his work with World Central Kitchen, which he founded in 
2010, Jose Andres also has earned a reputation as the world's leading 
``first responder for food.''
  Wherever disaster strikes, it seems the World Central Kitchen is 
there to feed hungry and displaced people, usually within 24 hours. For 
Chef Tony Priolo in Chicago, it wasn't enough, though, simply to raise 
money for the World Central Kitchen, as noble as that effort is.
  After the success of Chicago Cooks for Ukraine, Tony tracked down his 
former employee on Instagram and asked: Are you OK? She replied: Not

[[Page S443]]

really. My mom and dog and I are hiding in the subway in Ukraine.
  So Tony decided he had to go to Ukraine himself personally and help. 
Two other starter chefs from Chicago, Giuseppe Tentori and Paul Kahan, 
decided to join him.
  When one of Tony's regular customers heard that the chefs were paying 
for the trip to Poland and Ukraine out of their own pockets, he said: I 
have 5 million frequent flier miles. I will buy your tickets.
  They volunteered for a week last April, cooking from early morning to 
late at night, feeding hot meals to as many as 30,000 people a day at a 
Polish refugee camp just six miles from the border.
  Helping others was not new to Tony. He is known for his support of 
charities, including Meals on Wheels Chicago, St. Jude's Hospital, and 
the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
  But what Tony saw in that refugee camp near the Polish-Ukrainian 
border broke his heart: an elderly couple who appeared to have left 
everything they owned behind, now dependent on the kindness of 
strangers for even a simple glass of water or a meal; terrified women 
and children who had been forced to flee their homes, carrying only 
what they could fit into suitcases and shopping bags.
  ``Often,'' Tony said, ``I had to look away to hide the tears.'' For 
his humanitarian work to aid Ukrainians displaced by war and his many 
other charitable endeavors, Chef Priolo was recently honored by Chicago 
magazine as a ``Chicagoan of the Year,'' a well-deserved tribute.
  Around the same time that Chef Priolo was watching the horrors unfold 
last year, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware and I sat in a dark, nearly 
empty departure lounge in Vilnius, Lithuania early one morning.
  We were there to express support for Lithuania, that small NATO 
member on the front line of democracy, who has a long history of 
Russian tyranny.
  And then while we sat, the unthinkable occurred in modern Europe. 
News broke that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin had launched a massive 
military invasion of Ukraine. It was an ill-fated throwback to an era 
when aggressor nations tried to seize their neighbor's territory by 
force, all in the blind pursuit of some warped Soviet nostalgia trip.

  Putin was willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of Ukrainians 
and even Russians, the reputation of his country, and the international 
order established after the horror of World War II.
  Perhaps having listened to too many years of his own country's 
brainwashing propaganda, Putin also thought Ukraine would fall into his 
lap in a matter of days or hours. He thought the transatlantic alliance 
in the community of democracies was a thing of the past and wouldn't 
dare to respond. Well, he was wrong on every single front.
  The Ukrainian people repelled Putin's invasion. They heroically 
clawed back seized territory. They withstood brutal, deliberate attacks 
on civilian targets and critical infrastructure--war crimes by any 
standard of human conduct.
  They are united in their resistance to Russia and their desire to be 
free to choose their own path in the future. The United States and its 
allies around the world have stood together in support of Ukraine and 
against Russia, and NATO is on the cusp of adding two new formidable 
members--Finland and Sweden.
  President Biden deserves great praise for leading this global effort, 
and praise too to the American people for recognizing a courageous 
effort against tyranny and standing on the right side of history.
  But we should not lose sight of the crimes committed by Putin in the 
war, crimes for which he and his enablers must and will be held 
accountable. Entire villages have been destroyed. From Bucha to Izyum 
to Kherson, there is evidence of horrific mass killing, torture, and 
sexual violence against innocent people.
  Dead and mutilated bodies litter the street. Babies have been found 
in mass graves. Thousands have been abducted. These are the acts of a 
war criminal.
  That is why Congress recently strengthened our Nation's tools for 
cooperation with the International Criminal Court when it comes to 
Ukraine and why we recently enacted a bill I introduced entitled 
Justice for Victims of War Crimes. And it is why Congress provided $45 
billion in aid to Ukraine in the most recent spending bill, a measure, 
thank goodness, with broad bipartisan support.
  Just like the Nuremburg trials after World War II, and, more 
recently, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
Yugoslavia, the world will hold Putin and the Russians accountable for 
unleashing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
  As President Biden said in his State of the Union Address, the fight 
against tyranny in Ukraine is ``a test for the ages. A test for 
America. [And] a test for the world.'' We cannot fail.
  I agree with the President. We must continue to stand loyally by 
Ukraine.
  I will close with a memory I will never forget. It was the year 
2014--9 years ago. I was walking through Kyiv's Maidan Square with my 
friend, the late Senator John McCain. It was a trip we made to the 
area, and he was a celebrity. John McCain stood by their side when 
others wouldn't, and they loved him for it.
  And we started to walk into Maidan Square together. All around us 
were makeshift shrines dedicated to the victims killed during peaceful 
protests simply asking for the opportunity to have a democracy. It was 
evident then and reflective of what we have seen during the last year 
in Ukraine, the unshakable determination of the Ukrainian people to be 
free, to be able to democratically choose their own future, just as we 
do in the United States.
  Senator McCain understood it, and I stood by his side. It is long 
overdue that President Putin understands it as well. Until then, we 
will stand together with the Ukrainian people in that journey toward 
democracy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Booker). The Senator from Alaska.