[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 32 (Thursday, February 16, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S477-S479]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                UKRAINE

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I rise today to offer some words in 
support of Ukraine as we approach the 1-year anniversary of Russia's 
full-scale invasion.
  Although the U.S. Government made public warnings about this 
premeditated attack for months in advance, it is still, frankly, 
shocking, in retrospect, when you think about what has occurred over 
the last 12 months: Russia trying to expand its borders through 
invasion.
  Now, maybe we were naive to think that this practice went by the 
wayside after World War II. It was common practice for powers for 
centuries beforehand, but the world has seen a level of brutality and 
devastation that is hard to contemplate. How unthinkable it was that in 
2022 a major power would

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launch a land war, a war of aggression, in the middle of Europe.
  Now, pundits and analysts, right, said that Kyiv would fall within a 
matter of days. That was the expectation. But the Ukrainian people had 
different plans. They fought back bravely, and we watched in awe--we 
still watch in awe--as President Zelenskyy stayed in Kyiv and rallied 
his country in defiance of Russia's attempt to recolonize Ukraine.
  The world responded, practically overnight, thanks to President 
Biden, who saw this coming, who rallied the world to Ukraine's defense, 
getting them the aid that they needed, especially in those early days, 
and treating Russia like a global pariah.
  It was clear from the beginning that Russia's aggressions was not 
going to be able to be rationalized or minimized. We didn't have the 
luxury as the United States, the world's preeminent power, of sitting 
on the sidelines. The American people got this then, and they still get 
it now. Across the political spectrum in this country, progressives, 
moderates, and conservatives understand how much is at stake in 
Ukraine, both morally and strategically.
  Because what have we seen? We have seen Russia launch this unprovoked 
barbaric war of conquest against its democratic neighbor. We have 
watched how they deliberately target apartment buildings, hospitals, 
churches, electricity grids, to try to bring the maximum amount of 
misery to Ukrainian families; how the Russian military uses murder, 
rape, and torture as systematic tools against the Ukrainian civilian 
population; and how Russian propagandists boast of kidnapping Ukrainian 
children and threaten to wipe out Ukrainian language and culture.
  There are 40 camps with upward of 6,000 children who have literally 
been kidnapped out of Ukraine and brought to Russia.
  The scale of this barbarity is hard to explain. The images that we 
have seen from Bucha and Mariupol are seared into our collective 
conscience.
  Americans also--I really think this--understand the strategic 
consequences that would come to America if Russia was just allowed to 
crush Ukraine, if we hadn't stood in their way along with the Ukrainian 
people. What would have happened is that Putin would have been 
emboldened. It would have given him the green light to march on other 
NATO allies, potentially drawing the United States into a longer, far 
more costly war and putting American troops in harm's way.
  That is what I believe, and that is what most Americans believe. But 
this is important stuff, right? This is war and peace. We are talking 
about tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars that are being sent 
to Ukraine for the defense of Ukraine. So, of course, those of us who 
support Ukraine should welcome a debate over whether the United States 
should be involved in this war.
  But I am just going to tell you that the growing chorus of opposition 
to supporting Ukraine from Republicans--mostly radical Republicans in 
the House of Representatives--does not feel to me like on-the-level 
criticism of U.S. support for the war.
  Listen, I am going to be honest with my colleagues. I think Democrats 
probably got too wound up in trying to figure out if Donald Trump was 
involved in some hidden conspiracy with Vladimir Putin. All of this 
focus on intrigue kind of made us blind to what was right in front of 
our face: that Donald Trump had this huge crush on Vladimir Putin and 
his authoritarian rule of Russia, and he still does.
  Donald Trump wanted to turn himself into a quasi-dictator here in the 
United States. That is what January 6 was about. That is why the floor 
of the Senate was occupied by his supporters. And Trump was jealous 
when he watched how easy it was for Putin to stay in power permanently 
and what a hassle it was for Donald Trump to have to go through these 
pesky, free elections.
  Now, Trump's admiration for Putin has turned into a collective 
rightwing obsession. Turn on Tucker Carlson virtually any night, and 
you are going to hear him lionizing Putin and pushing--often, line for 
line--Russian disinformation. Elon Musk uncritically blasts out Russian 
propaganda about the war to his 120 million plus followers. Steve 
Bannon says that Putin is the leader of the ``anti-woke'' fight 
globally. Donald Trump, Jr.--I follow him on social media--is 
relentlessly making fun of Zelenskyy online. QAnon sites say that 
Russia's war on Ukraine is righteous because it is just the next front 
in the war against these global sex traffickers that apparently are 
operating out of pizza parlors in northwest DC and Ukraine.
  I could go on and on, but you get it, right? And Putin, he gets it 
too. He is counting on the right wing to advance Russian propaganda and 
exploit our internal divisions.
  It is not surprising or shocking. The hot new thinkers on the right 
aren't really for democracy any longer. The new right, the alt-right--
whatever you want to call it--they think that democracy has 
outlived its usefulness and needs to be destroyed, replaced by 
something else, like a quasi-monarchy or a CEO-style government.

  The conservative movement today is awash with proponents of doing 
away with participatory democracy, and so it is really no secret that 
there is a growing affection for the most prominent dictator in the 
world.
  Now, I want to be careful about how I talk about this because, often, 
opponents of a war are accused of being anti-American or unpatriotic or 
parroting our enemies' talking points. But in this case, there is 
literally a wing of the Republican Party that is lifting up Putin as an 
example to follow and is claiming that he is involved in a righteous 
fight.
  That same element of the Republican Party is trying to destroy 
American democracy. They are not hiding that fact. They are being 
transparent about it. Some of the most influential thinkers on the 
right today are literally monarchists.
  And I guess a defense of the anti-Ukraine strain of Republican 
thinking today would be that their opposition to Ukraine is part of a 
coherent world view. I might not agree with that world view, but it 
would be a defense.
  But the same Republicans who are trying to defund Ukraine are often 
the loudest voices clamoring for a confrontational and reckless 
approach to China. Many of them criticized President Biden mercilessly 
when he withdrew from Afghanistan. If their opposition to Ukraine was 
part of a broader theory of nonintervention, maybe it would look more 
on the level, but that is not what is happening here. Ukraine is being 
singled out, and all signs point to this rightwing Republican affection 
for Vladimir Putin as one of the primary reasons.
  But here is the good news. The good news is that, in spite of this 
turn inside the Republican Party against Ukraine, support for Ukraine 
remains popular among the American people. Nearly two-thirds of 
Americans support the United States continuing to send aid to Ukraine. 
Seventy percent of Americans just supported the recent decision to send 
M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, and less than 10 percent of Americans--a 
bigger number are of the Republican Party, but less than 10 percent of 
Americans--have a favorable view of Putin, showing, frankly, how deeply 
out of step Trump and these extreme MAGA Republicans are.
  And while there are more Republican Senators questioning whether we 
should stick with Ukraine today than there might have been 6 months 
ago, it is still true that most Republicans in this body--in the U.S. 
Senate--still support Ukraine.
  A year ago, nobody was predicting that Ukraine would still be 
standing today, beating back Russian forces out of Kyiv, Kharkiv, 
Kherson. It is equally difficult to predict what is going to happen in 
the year ahead, and we should all admit that.
  But I will say this: We should be clear-eyed about the likelihood 
that either side is going to achieve all its political objectives on 
the battlefield.
  Like most of my constituents in Connecticut, I would like nothing 
more than for this war to end and for diplomacy to secure a free 
Ukraine. But Ukraine can't negotiate a peace settlement with itself, 
and right now Vladimir Putin is not interested in negotiations or a 
peaceful settlement.
  For those people telling Zelenskyy that he should sit down with 
Putin, today, any agreement they write wouldn't be worth the paper it 
is written on. The day may come when Putin judges that continued 
aggression no longer serves his personal interests,

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and our job as the collective West is to convince him of that by 
demonstrating the limits of his power.
  And that is essentially what I believe--that you have to show Putin, 
demonstrate for him, the limits of his power, and I just suspect that 
there is still some way to go before we reach that point. The new 
contemplated Russian offensive tells us that much.
  So while there will come a time for diplomacy, right now Ukraine must 
fight for its existence, and, right now, despite what these pro-Putin 
Republicans say, it is in our interest to continue to support Ukraine.
  I yield the floor.

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