    [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2025)]
    [Senate]
    [Pages S1436-S1438]
    From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                    UKRAINE

      Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a very painful
    milestone. This week marks the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale
    invasion of Ukraine.
      Over the past 3 years, the world has witnessed the incredible bravery
    and resolve of the Ukrainian people as they have stood up to Russia's
    unspeakable brutality and destruction.
      We have seen--and, indeed, the United States should take great pride
    in having led--an impressive coalition of nations coming together to
    support Ukraine in this fight to preserve its democracy.
      At the same time, an alarming convergence of authoritarian states--
    Russia, China, Iran, Belarus, and North Korea--have banded together to
    enable Russia's illegal war of choice.
      As we mark this milestone, we are faced with another frightening set
    of developments. President Trump has set his sights on negotiations
    with Vladimir Putin to win the war. But before reaching the negotiating
    table, Mr. Trump has appeared so eager to reach

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    a deal that he has been willing to acquiesce to Russian demands for
    essentially nothing in return. Even worse, he has deliberately excluded
    Ukraine and Europe from the discussion.
      We have seen this playbook before, most recently in Afghanistan. In
    2020, President Trump, eager to achieve a quick deal, negotiated
    directly with the Taliban and excluded the Afghan Government from the
    negotiating table. He capitulated to Taliban demands, including the
    release of over 5,000 Taliban fighters, and blindly agreed to a 1-year
    withdrawal timeline, even as evidence mounted that the Taliban was not
    holding up the meager demands in the agreement. I fear President Trump
    has not learned any new negotiating skills in the 5 years since.
      The tenets of his approach to Ukraine and Europe appear to be the
    same: Exclude and criticize American allies, capitulate to our enemies,
    and withdraw support without any assurance of success.
      Earlier this month, Munich was the scene of another capitulation,
    when Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Hegseth kicked off
    Trump's giveaway campaign to President Putin.
      The historical irony is unmistakable, since Munich is a place that
    has inauspiciously become a shorthand for the ``appeasement'' of
    tyrants.
      In 1932, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain left his meeting
    with Adolf Hitler in Munich. And after surrendering Czechoslovakia in
    exchange for a peace pledge, when he returned to England, Chamberlain
    waved about a piece of paper with Hitler's promise and declared,
    ``Peace in our time.'' In reality, it was the beginning of the
    capitulation that would lead inextricably to the greatest war in
    history.
      Hopefully, this administration's rush to appease Vladimir Putin will
    not lead to the carnage like that of World War II. But it well may cost
    Ukraine its sovereignty and independence while also undermining the
    international order--the very same order that America and her allies
    created from the ashes of World War II.
      Let's review the bidding so far. To begin, Defense Secretary
    Hegseth's speech in Brussels at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group set a
    shameful tone for the American delegation in Europe.
      Ukraine Defense Contact Group, or UDCG, was created by the United
    States under the Biden administration. It has organized and led the
    international efforts to support Ukraine, which has enabled Ukrainians
    to significantly repel the Russian invasion and continue the fight to
    protect their homeland.
      The United States has led this effort throughout the war. I regret
    that Secretary Hegseth's first appearance marked the retreat of our
    role as leader of the UDCG.
      In his remarks, he said:

           [W]e must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's
         . . . 2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.

      He further stated:

           [T]he United States does not believe that NATO membership
         for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated
         settlement.

      In essence, Secretary Hegseth conceded away our most important
    leverage against Russia. His statements, echoed by President Trump and
    Vice President Vance, have already badly weakened and undermined our
    negotiating position by gifting the Russians with several unilateral
    concessions. All of these forfeits were made without any apparent
    consultation with the Ukraine or our NATO allies.
      Again, the shortsightedness of President Trump's, Hegseth's, and
    Vance's statements are alarming.
      NATO has been the bulwark against Russian aggression in Europe since
    1949. The alliance has more than doubled its membership since its
    founding. Central to the enlargement is NATO's open-door policy,
    enshrined in article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which affirms a
    core NATO tenet that any European nation that demonstrates a
    willingness to contribute to our collective security and the values and
    obligation of the NATO alliance may seek membership.
      Vladimir Putin does not get to dictate who may or may not become a
    member of the NATO alliance, just as his Soviet predecessors could not
    stop the membership prospects of Poland or Hungary or Germany. To
    preemptively surrender admission to NATO is national security
    malpractice and only benefits Vladimir Putin.
      Finally, Secretary Hegseth declared that Europe and NATO are no
    longer priorities of the Trump administration.
      In his words:

           We're . . . here today to directly and unambiguously
         express that stark strategic realities prevent the United
         States . . . from being primarily focused on the security of
         Europe.

      Further:

           The United States faces consequential threats to our
         homeland. We must--and we are--focusing on security of our
         own borders.

      I agree that the security of America's homeland is our No. 1 national
    security mission, but I reject Secretary Hegseth's myopic view that the
    American national security establishment is so fragile and so
    constrained that it must shift the entirety of its focus to the border
    security mission, at the expense of other national security
    imperatives.
      Moreover, border protection is a civilian law enforcement mission.
    Deploying large numbers of military forces to support the Border Patrol
    is a gross misallocation of forces and raises numerous legal issues.
      The administration's shameful claims have been a shock to Ukraine,
    NATO, Europe, and the democratic world at large. They have provided
    great comfort to Putin and autocrats everywhere.
      In addition to Secretary Hegseth's speech, Vice President Vance took
    the stage in Munich and further eroded our status in the world. He
    castigated European allies for his perceived grievances with their
    domestic politics and alleged movements away from ``democratic
    values,'' while at the same time remaining silent on the brutal
    dictators in Russia and Belarus who have never had a free or fair
    election in the course of their tenure.
      President Trump gave his tip of the hat to autocracy last week when
    he attempted to revise history by alleging that Ukraine, not Russia,
    started the war and that President Zelenskyy was the ``dictator'' in
    this situation. These categorically false statements are either a
    product of deliberate deceit or historical delusion.
      President Trump even directed the Acting U.S. Ambassador to the
    United Nations to vote against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia's
    war against Ukraine. The United States instead voted in a bloc with
    Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other authoritarian nations, which is a
    stunning reversal of decades of American foreign policy.
      This toxic revisionist history has now pervaded his political
    nominees as well. Throughout the week, his political appointees have
    contorted themselves in order to avoid acknowledging the fact that
    Russia was responsible for starting the war in Ukraine. This is
    something straight out of North Korea, where ``facts'' are the sole
    purview of the Dear Leader.
      We must also note the deafening silence from many of my Republican
    colleagues. Many Republicans claimed for years to be unapologetic
    supporters of Ukraine who were outraged by the perception that
    President Biden was not sending enough U.S. support to Ukraine. But now
    they appear to be standing by silently as facts are erased, as the
    pipeline of aid to Ukraine peters to a halt, as the Trump
    administration disbands Federal task forces established to seize the
    assets of Russian oligarchs and guard against foreign election
    interference and disinformation campaigns.
      Silence is complicity. We cannot allow this to continue. If we are
    going down the path of negotiation with Russia, we must act to
    strengthen our hand in these negotiations.
      Ironically, Russia is in a very weak negotiating position. Let us
    briefly review Putin's situation.
      Over the course of 3 years, Ukraine has inflicted a staggering cost
    on Russia. Putin has lost 200,000 soldiers, and many hundreds of
    thousands more were wounded. He has lost hundreds of billions of
    dollars of military equipment and weapons. Indeed, Russia's weapons and
    logistical stocks are perilously diminished. Their closest ally in the
    war--Iran--is weaker than it has been in decades due to Israeli and
    U.S. actions. North Korean soldiers, sent to reinforce flagging Russian
    forces, are suffering severe casualty rates. Russia has been ousted
    from Syria, and its Wagner mercenaries in Africa are struggling to
    reorganize. The Russian economy is afloat but stagnant.

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      Any shrewd negotiator should recognize that Russia is on the ropes.
    Now is not the time to appease Putin. This is a time to exert maximum
    pressure to bring him to the negotiating table hat in hand.
      There are three things we must do now.
      First, we must continue to pressure Russia economically. This means
    strengthening existing sanctions, identifying secondary sanctions, and
    bolstering sanctions enforcement and anti-evasion efforts. At the top
    of the effort to control the evasion of sanctions, we should be working
    with allies to combat the illicit oil trade, including efforts to go on
    the offensive against the so-called ghost fleet of aging tankers Russia
    employs to facilitate the export of oil and other sanctioned goods.

      Second, we must work with our European partners to impound and
    leverage Russia's frozen assets.
      Finally, we must ensure in both word and deed that Ukraine has our
    support and commitment to working with them to establish a just and
    lasting peace.
      However, instead of taking action to strengthen the negotiating hand
    on any of these fronts, the administration has shifted focus to the
    signing of a deal to exploit Ukraine's natural resources. Much remains
    to be seen about the shape of this agreement, but we do know it will
    take years, if not decades, to see substantial returns.
      A large number of Ukraine's rare earth deposits are actually located
    in Ukrainian territory that is currently contested or occupied by
    Russia. I am not sure how one is to square this agreement with
    Secretary Hegseth's comments about the forfeiture of Ukraine's
    sovereign territory.
      Furthermore, the deal includes no security guarantees from the United
    States, which the Ukrainians have--rightly, I believe--insisted upon.
    Security guarantees are essential to assure Ukraine that the United
    States is not simply interested in an enrichment scheme but is
    committed to the pursuit of a just and lasting peace.
      Indeed, a just and lasting peace must be the final outcome. That is a
    United States national security imperative, one that has--at least
    until recently--enjoyed robust and vocal bipartisan support.
      We support Ukraine because we know that the war in Ukraine is not
    just a regional war; it is the most visible demonstration of the larger
    existential threat Russia poses to our national security.
      We support Ukraine to ensure that Vladimir Putin cannot achieve his
    goals, which are counter to our own national interests. We must be
    clear-eyed about this. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, it will be the
    first piece in his long-stated promise to recreate the Soviet empire.
    If that happens, if we fail to learn from history and to see brutal and
    craven authoritarians for what they are and the threat they represent,
    we may again find America's sons and daughters sent overseas to fight
    on foreign shores.
      I urge my Republican colleagues and my Democratic colleagues--all my
    colleagues--to speak up and stand with Ukraine as they have done for so
    many years. Let us continue.
      I yield the floor.
      The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

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