[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 56 (Thursday, March 27, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1898-S1900]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Ukraine

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to offer some 
remarks

[[Page S1899]]

on the situation in Europe and the prospects for peace in Ukraine.
  We should start with recent positive developments. President Trump 
and President Zelenskyy have demonstrated remarkable resolve and 
remarkable wherewithal. Just this week, we heard news from the peace 
talks in Saudi Arabia. Ukraine publicly expressed openness to prisoner 
exchanges, a welcome development. Notably, Russia did not express such 
willingness. We should applaud Ukraine's overtures. An agreement is in 
reach that reflects the common cause of the United States and Ukraine.
  Separately, much ink has been spilled on the economic investment 
deal. Less has been said about why the United States is interested in 
an investment deal with Ukraine. President Trump recognizes that 
America is better off when Ukraine is free, strong, and industrious. 
The economic investment deal shows that our President wants peace and 
that he wants an honorable peace, one that ensures the prosperity and 
protection of Ukraine and the United States.
  This peace will require that Russia put down its weapons in an 
enduring and verifiable way. It is clear that Vladimir Putin does not 
share President Trump's desire for peace. As Putin's representatives 
prepare to sit down with American diplomats, President Putin has 
ordered salvo after salvo of missiles and drones to strike Ukrainian 
apartments, killing noncombatant women and children. These are not the 
gestures of a statesman who wants to negotiate peace. We are dealing 
with a tyrant who speaks the language of war and terror. We have to 
deal with him, but that is who he is.
  In recent decades, several successive U.S. Presidents have extended 
the hand of peace to Mr. Putin. Each one of them had different tactics, 
but none of them achieved the outcome they desire. In this series of 
failed diplomacy, the common denominator was not the American 
Presidents, regardless of party. The common denominator was and is 
Russia's dictator, Vladimir Putin, a war criminal. So we need to remind 
the American people exactly what kind of strongman we are dealing with 
here, the kind of strongman we are trying to negotiate with, the kind 
of strongman we are forced to negotiate with.
  Vladimir Putin, regrettably, is not interested in peace. He is 
interested in a phony deal. He has shown this with his words, his acts 
of violence, and the peace agreements he has shredded.
  Dictators frequently tell us who they really are. In 2007, Putin 
stood before the Munich Security Conference, and he rejected a world in 
which nations cooperate. In his other writings, he has publicly mourned 
the collapse of the Soviet empire, and he dreams of its resurrection.
  In 2021, President Putin wrote an essay laying the groundwork for his 
invasion of Ukraine. This was a year before the recent invasion. In it, 
he rejected the very right of the Ukrainian people to exist as a 
distinct and self-governing nation. In writing, the essay is full of 
lies. It would have made Adolf Hitler proud. But it shows one thing is 
true: Mr. Putin is a Russian imperialist to the core. Here is a man who 
believes the greatest historical tragedy of the last 40 years was the 
collapse of the Soviet power and influence over Eastern Europe.
  Putin publicly proclaims his delusions of grandeur but has not 
stopped at words and speeches. He has used any means necessary to 
continue his decades-long political warfare against NATO, and he has 
ruthlessly worked to achieve the empire he craves.
  In the year after his Munich speech, Vladimir Putin and his army 
invaded their neighbor, the Republic of Georgia. In the year after his 
essay about Ukraine, he invaded Ukraine. Mr. Putin no longer 
technically works for the KGB but still thinks like a KBG agent--the 
kind who uses chemical weapons to poison people in Russia and all over 
the world, exacting revenge on his critics without regard for 
international borders.
  He jails reporters and activists. Why does he do this? Because 
dictators actually live in fear of their own people. Putin has 
imprisoned scores of Americans in Russian gulags. He has killed and 
kidnapped American citizens across the globe. His commandos have 
targeted our soldiers in Afghanistan. He has no respect for our country 
or for human life in his country or any other country.
  And he has the weaponry to back up his threats. Mr. Putin sits atop 
the world's largest and most diverse nuclear arsenal. And I might add 
that this arsenal is postured specifically at us to destroy the United 
States.
  In another perverse action--I have to say this--Mr. Putin has tried 
to co-opt Christianity, if you can believe that. He has twisted a 
religion of repentance into a propaganda machine. Patriarch Kirill of 
Moscow professes to lead the Russian Orthodox Church. In reality, 
Kirill is a puppet of Vladimir Putin. His father baptized Vladimir 
Putin. And now Kirill follows his father's footsteps by sanctifying the 
dictator's crimes.
  Kirill has blessed the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, absurdly claiming 
that the Russians are fighting against evil. As patriarch, he blessed 
the invasion. As Russia bombs Ukrainian women and children, Kirill 
invokes God's name to justify Putin's butchery. Kirill is the very 
definition of the Prophet Isaiah's portrait of corruption. Isaiah 
condemned men like him, those who ``call evil good and good evil.''
  Shame on this phony patriarch.
  President Putin has publicly shared his imperialistic dreams. He 
violently pursued those goals even in God's name. Along the way, he has 
torn to shreds every cease-fire deal he has ever signed. Before World 
War I, the Kaiser's regime in Germany called a treaty ``a mere scrap of 
paper.'' Well, Vladimir Putin feels the same. He has no regard for the 
Budapest Memorandum. He has no regard for the INF Treaty. He has no 
regard for the Minsk agreement. In each case, Putin has lied, stolen, 
and misdirected to further his empire-building ambitions. And that is 
what he is trying to do with negotiations today.

  President Trump is interested in peace. President Zelenskyy is 
interested in peace. Putin values peace as little as any piece of 
shredded paper he would deceitfully sign.
  Many people do not realize that Ukrainians have been valiantly and 
steadily weakening Putin's forces. Half a million Russian soldiers--
half a million souls--have either been killed or injured so severely 
that they cannot return to the battlefield. That is half a million 
Russian moms without sons, wives without husbands. That total is steep, 
and the blame rests upon one person, the man who ordered the invasion: 
Vladimir Putin and his imperialistic vision.
  Russia is barely managing to sustain this war. And I think the 
American people do not know this, but Russia is barely hanging on. They 
are struggling from heavy battlefield costs and economic sanctions. We 
should not support a peace deal that could let Russia up off the mat 
and reconstitute its army.
  Both the previous and the current Secretaries General of NATO expect 
that Russia will not be ready to threaten NATO conventionally for 5 to 
7 years. The wrong deal with Russia could allow them to be off to the 
races sooner. And Russia wants just that, as we have seen this week. 
Putin is trying to work the peace process deceptively to skew it in his 
favor.
  This week, his office has pushed out messages from the peace talks in 
Riyadh. Putin's officials maintain that the United States is prepared 
to lift a number of sanctions, sanctions the West imposed after 
Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I certainly hope that is not true.
  These Kremlin officials claim that we will soon readmit Russia to 
SWIFT. SWIFT, of course, is the global financial system that Russian 
depends on for global trade. Putin relies on trade to finance his war 
machine. Russians also think we are prepared to grant sanctions relief 
for any company that ships goods on vessels flying the Russian flag or 
they could claim any ties to food production, shipping, and securities. 
Such a deal would be full of loopholes. Such a deal would be designed 
to let Russia, which is on the ropes, off the mat.
  Mr. Putin's men asked for all of this. Yet they offer little in 
return. They won't even talk about prisoner exchanges. That is 
breathtaking, especially when Ukraine has publicly expressed openness 
to a cease-fire. They are the ones that have publicly said

[[Page S1900]]

they will agree to a cease-fire. Mr. Putin and his negotiators have 
never proclaimed that. The Ukrainians, who have been ruthlessly 
attacked, have extended the hand of peace. Russia still has not even 
though it demands so much. Putin says he is willing to work toward 
peace, but his demands show that he is lying. His demands make it clear 
he intends to use the sanctions relief to rearm.
  It would be a mistake to grant sanctions relief to Russia without 
reciprocal support for Ukraine. Doing so would devastate the prospect 
of a lasting peace. Let me repeat. Mr. Putin has never agreed to a 
cease-fire, to a treaty that resulted in a lasting peace. As we 
negotiate in Saudi Arabia, the United States must remember that Russia 
is barely managing to sustain this war.
  The economic and battlefield price is very costly for Mr. Putin. 
Undoing these sanctions would instantly lower Putin's cost. It would 
evaporate the leverage his financial penalties have given to the United 
States and the free world.
  As I close, let me reiterate, many have tried to negotiate with 
Vladimir Putin on his terms. I think President Trump is beginning to 
understand that peace comes through American and Ukrainian strength; 
that dictators respond to power because it is the only thing they 
respect. We need to see this Russian dictator and war criminal for what 
he is: a murderous dictator who hopes he can back us into a corner 
during the peace process and thus pursue another invasion.
  If Vladimir Putin lives up to a cease-fire or peace treaty with 
Ukraine, it will be the first time ever. Vladimir Putin has a long 
track record, and it is filled with lies, violence, and treachery. That 
is whom we are dealing with. We have to deal with him, but that is whom 
we are dealing with. Getting a deal with him will be a challenge. We 
must bear history in mind if we are to reach a settlement that benefits 
the free countries of the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, before I go to my remarks, I wanted to 
thank the Senator from Mississippi for that fabulous statement. I 
really do appreciate his leadership.
  I am pretty sure your father served in World War II, as did my 
father. I think that we continue to echo the lessons that we learned 
from that conflict.
  I thank you for that tremendous statement in support of Ukraine.