[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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