[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 38 (Tuesday, February 28, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H922-H923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
            RUSSIA'S EXPANDED TERRORIST WAR AGAINST UKRAINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, today I rise to mark more than 1 year of 
Russia's expanded terrorist war against Ukraine after its initial 
unprovoked invasion in 2014.
  The words of Ukraine's poet laureate Taras Shevchenko ring especially 
true today as when he penned them nearly two centuries ago:
  `` . . . rise ye up and break your heavy chains and water with the 
tyrants' blood, the freedom you have gained.''
  Ukraine's moment to victory is now. The defining accomplishment of 
the 20th century was the victory of liberty over tyranny. Vanquishing 
Nazi and imperialist tyranny and defeating the forces of Soviet-imposed 
communism a half century later ended the Cold War.
  New institutions for the common defense of liberty, including NATO, 
were founded. The U.S. Marshall Plan helped to secure and rebuild a 
war-torn but free Europe, and both America and liberty prospered.
  Through the bipartisan leadership of great Americans, including 
General George Marshall, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and Presidents 
Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, America rose--though somewhat 
reluctantly--to be liberty's standard-bearer. And even in those 
European nations that had fallen behind the Iron Curtain, such as 
Ukraine, the impulse for freedom hastened. For America, helping liberty 
defeat tyranny has always been bipartisan.
  Recall the images of President John Kennedy in West Germany declaring 
``Ich bin ein Berliner.''
  President Ronald Reagan stood behind the Brandenburg Gate nearly two 
decades later near the Berlin Wall demanding, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear 
down this wall.''
  Those images defined the boundary between East and West: free people 
versus subjugated people.
  It was barely 2 years after President Reagan's speech and after over 
four decades of free world vigilance that the world witnessed the 
profound victory of the valiant Solidarnosc workers in the steelyards 
of Gdansk, Poland.
  Soon, captive nations subjugated by the Soviet Union for decades 
began to tumble. First, in 1989, Poland. Then in 1991, Ukraine. Then 
the entirety of the captive nations held subjugated by the Soviet 
Union. It was a major turning point in the arc of world history.
  The Allied post-war institutions created to defend liberty still 
exist today. Indeed, now with Sweden and Finland

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joining NATO, that alliance grows stronger than it has ever been.
  Ukraine, too, seeks to join its European allies who are democratic in 
the European Union. Ukrainian soldiers meanwhile embattled and vastly 
outnumbered are dying, dying, dying for the cause of self-determination 
and liberty. Against great odds, Ukraine faces an enemy three times 
their population with far more military resources, but they fight.
  To gain a sense of what Ukrainians are feeling right now, visit the 
World War II Memorial here in Washington, D.C. Seek to understand the 
sacrifices of the more than 400,000 Americans whose lives were given to 
liberty in its cause on the Atlantic, Pacific, and African fronts 
during the 20th century so that we, our generations, could remain free.
  Under Soviet domination, no nation in the world suffered more than 
Ukraine. More than 4 million innocent people were systematically 
starved to death by Joseph Stalin, with millions upon millions upon 
millions more, whose names we will never know, murdered by Stalin's 
brutal Communist regime. America has been absent those horrors, thank 
God.
  Despite these bestial atrocities, America at times has turned a blind 
eye to Russian atrocities dating back to its World War II unholy 
alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazism.

  In 2008, when Russian President Vladimir Putin stormed into The 
Republic of Georgia, President George W. Bush looked the other way. In 
2014, when Vladimir Putin, entirely unprovoked, originally invaded 
Ukraine and subjugated Crimea, President Barack Obama paused.
  Now Putin, in trying to capture the sovereign nation of Ukraine and 
hold it under his tyrannical claw, has gone too far. America has 
resumed its role as the vigorous and uncompromising defender of free 
and aspiring people. Liberty must check tyranny. Today, Ukraine seeks 
liberty for her 40 million people--Liberty must win. Liberty will win.
  President Biden, Senate leaders Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, 
Senator Lindsey Graham, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, and other 
impassioned advocates of both parties champion Ukraine's cause. America 
and our allies have responded to the crisis by sending fervent support 
in the form of weapons and humanitarian aid. What happens next? In one 
word, victory.
  Our Nation does not exist alone on this globe. Isolation is 
strangulation. America's democratic ally Ukraine is pleading for help. 
President Biden has made his position clear: he will support Ukraine 
``as long as it takes.'' And he will not let Putin force Ukraine to 
negotiate away its territory. He takes these positions because he knows 
it would be aiding and abetting the enemy for America to look the other 
way. To do nothing is essentially choosing to side with Russia over 
Ukraine. In the long term that would be foolhardy and dangerous both 
for the United States and for a safer, more democratic world.
  America is still a young land and, in some ways, largely sheltered 
from the lengths to which vicious tyrants will go to wipe out free 
people. Putin is prepared to go to those lengths. This is the time to 
choose. This is the time to fight. This is the time to stand up and 
defend liberty, at home and abroad. Each generation must make fateful 
choices. So must we.
  When our great Nation was founded, most of the world's population 
were slaves, serfs, or subjugated. Even then, one of our Founding 
Fathers, Patrick Henry, grasped the concept of liberty. He challenged 
our forbearers: ``Give me Liberty or give me death.'' He understood 
what was at stake then, just as the people of Ukraine do today. So must 
we. The free world must choose liberty. America stands with our Allies 
to strengthen democracy, and realize in our time and generation a free, 
sovereign, and independent Ukraine. Slava Ukraini! Glory to Ukraine.

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