[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 79 (Monday, May 12, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2849-S2850]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                UKRAINE

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, America is an exceptional nation: 
freedom of religion, freedom of speech and of the press; private 
property rights; free and fair elections; the rule of law and an 
independent judiciary. All of these help make us exceptional, but we 
Americans often take this for granted because these principles, these 
values, are so ingrained in our way of life. That is who we are. But it 
also makes it more challenging for us to understand how different other 
countries may be from us. It shouldn't be a surprise, though, if you 
think about it. History, culture, economics all matter, but, sadly, 
this is a lesson that seems like we and others need to learn over and 
over again.
  When it comes to Russia, it is worth recalling Churchill's 
description of the former Soviet Union. He called it a riddle wrapped 
in a mystery inside an enigma, but when it comes to negotiating peace 
in Ukraine, we might be tempted to assume that Vladimir Putin is 
working from the same playbook as other stakeholders. But that is 
simply not the case. The fundamental differences between Russia and the 
West have become all that much more apparent in the negotiations to end 
the war in Ukraine. This is precisely what has made it such a difficult 
challenge to end the war, and that is what makes President Trump's 
efforts all that much more noble when we consider the monumental task 
that he is seeking to accomplish.
  As I have said before--and I will say it again--I am grateful to 
President Trump for his leadership and his efforts to end the conflict 
that has lasted far too long--for more than 3 years now. During his 
first 100 days, President Trump has done more than President Biden did 
in 4 years. He has made clear to the Europeans that they need to step 
up and assume greater ownership of their continental security, and he 
successfully persuaded them to increase their defense spending and 
enhance deterrents against future aggression.
  The President's representatives have led several rounds of 
negotiations between the Ukrainians and the Russians--something that 
President Biden did not even attempt--and President Trump has secured a 
key critical minerals deal with Ukraine, which will help fund the 
reconstruction of that country. It will help compensate America for its 
investments in Ukraine's defense and dissuade future Russian 
aggression.
  But there is one significant obstacle in achieving a lasting end to 
this conflict, and that, of course, is Vladimir Putin.
  Succinctly stated, Vladimir Putin's Russia is a police state. In 
Russia, people who buck the government mysteriously disappear or fall 
out of windows to their deaths or are poisoned, imprisoned, or die of 
suspect causes like Alexei Navalny. In Russia, the government targets 
religious minorities, imposing fines and criminal charges. In Russia, 
the government controls the media. Independent media outlets are 
censored, suppressed, or shuttered if they do not conform to the party 
line. Under Vladimir Putin, government redistributes private property 
based on political loyalties, giving rise to the oligarchs that we have 
heard so much about.
  Then there are the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity 
committed by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine. Take, for example, 
the bombing of Ukraine's civilian energy infrastructure during the 
first winter of Russia's full-scale invasion or consider the mass 
abduction of Ukrainian children. Thousands of Ukrainian children have 
been deported to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion, 
with many having been adopted into Russian families or sent to camps, 
where they are subjected to ideological indoctrination designed to 
erase their Ukrainian identity.
  The bombing of Ukraine's power grid, which was part of a state policy 
of widespread attacks on the civilian population, further illustrates 
the point.

[[Page S2850]]

One particular event in Bucha stands out. Russian troops intentionally 
massacred more than 400 civilians, apparently as part of a systematic 
clearing operation to secure their path to the capital, Kyiv. Russian 
paratroopers from the 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment interrogated 
and executed unarmed men of fighting age and killed people who 
unwittingly crossed their paths, whether it was children fleeing with 
their families or locals hoping to find groceries or people simply 
trying to get back home on their bicycles. The victims of this massacre 
were of all ages and professions. This massacre would be deemed a war 
crime under international humanitarian law, and because of their 
systematic and widespread nature, the killings in Bucha could also 
amount to crimes against humanity.
  So the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin is nothing like the 
United States or Europe, for that matter. Russia, of course, has its 
own history, culture, and form of government, and I said earlier, it 
can be easy for the West to assume, as we have done before, that our 
values are shared by other countries, but that is most decidedly not 
the case with Putin's Russia. Putin has made his unwillingness to end 
this unprovoked and barbaric war as plain as day. He has shown no 
remorse that his country is nearing 1 million casualties. He clearly 
doesn't care about the Russian people, who have been sacrificed to his 
fantasy of an empire restored, and his tolerance for casualties appears 
without limit.
  In fact, Putin has done nothing to justify the hope that he might be 
persuaded to end this war. To the contrary, despite Putin's declared 
cease-fire over the Easter holiday, Russia then proceeded to launch 
attacks into Ukraine that killed innocent civilians. More recently, 
Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 165 drones, wounding 11 
people, including 2 children.
  One 54-year-old Kyiv resident, whose car caught fire during the 
attack, expressed frustration at the lack of progress for peace, 
saying:

       They can't agree on anything, and we are the ones who 
     suffer the consequences.

  An 18-year-old student said:

       People are just suffering all the time . . . It's still 
     very hard to see our country constantly being destroyed.

  President Trump noted in a statement on Truth Social:

       There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into 
     civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days.

  The President went on to suggest that Putin may not actually be 
trying to stop the war. I agree with President Trump. There is no 
indication he is trying to stop the war. Vladimir Putin is making a 
grave mistake in stringing the President of the United States and the 
rest of the world along while innocent lives are being taken.
  In order to achieve peace, President Trump needs a good-faith partner 
both in Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Russian President Putin. 
Notably, while Zelenskyy has met with the President several times, most 
recently at the Vatican, Putin has not. Instead of working for peace, 
Putin recently threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine in order to 
bring the war, in his own words, ``to a logical conclusion with the 
outcome [that] Russia requires.''
  How does this relate to President Trump's peace efforts? Well, we 
should listen to Putin's own words. In a speech he delivered to the 
Russian Foreign Ministry last year, Putin argued that peace with 
Ukraine would require a removal of Ukrainian troops from the southern 
and eastern part of that country, the demilitarization and 
denuclearization of Ukraine, a neutral and non-NATO Ukraine, and the 
removal of all Western sanctions.
  The hard reality is that Putin sees this conflict not just as a war 
between Russia and Ukraine but as a war between Russia and the West.
  In this same speech, he says the West is primarily at fault for the 
conflict in the world today and that it was the West that incited a 
Ukrainian coup in 2014 and further unrest in Eastern Ukraine in 2022, 
which necessitated Russian military action to liberate the people of 
Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Putin says that the war would have ended 
long ago, in March 2022, had it not been for the West's supplying 
Ukraine with weapons and political support and extending the conflict.
  Likewise, Putin sees Ukraine's prospective association with NATO or 
European peacekeeping forces an inherit extension of Western 
imperialism, which he cannot tolerate. He even goes as far as to say 
that Russia could not accept a cease-fire since it would give time for 
Ukraine to rearm.
  Finally, Putin shares a vision for a multipolar world to counter what 
he perceives as Western imperialism and Russia's efforts to use 
security and economic agreements toward these ends.
  In sum, Putin does not see this negotiation as a means to bringing 
about an end to the conflict in Ukraine; he sees it as a key piece to a 
larger war against the West. In essence, this negotiation is much 
bigger than Russia and Ukraine. We need to listen to what Putin says 
but also watch what he does as he attempts to stall peace negotiations 
while attempting to achieve his larger aims.
  Putin's invasion of Ukraine just over 3 years ago is an obvious 
violation of another international agreement that Russia was a party 
to--the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Under this agreement, Ukraine 
willingly gave up its arsenal of nuclear weapons--the third largest in 
the world--in exchange for security assurances by Russia and other 
signatories. Russia went on then to violate the Budapest Memorandum in 
2014 when it invaded Crimea and annexed the Crimea Peninsula. Then, as 
we all know, Russia violated the Memorandum for a second time in 
February 2022 with its invasion of Ukraine proper.
  If Russia were unwilling to honor the commitments enshrined in the 
Budapest Memorandum in 2014 and 2022, how, then, can Ukraine or the 
rest of the world, for that matter, be assured that they will honor a 
peace agreement brokered in 2025?
  And, once again, Putin is threatening nuclear war if he does not 
receive the guarantees of a further demilitarized Ukraine.
  But if he thinks these threats are an effective method of 
intimidating the United States and President Trump, he is mistaken. 
President Trump has made very clear that he will not allow Russia to 
continue doing what he calls ``tapping us along.''
  Putin may well have been able to dupe Obama. He may have been able to 
intimidate Biden. But any attempt to fool or strong-arm President Trump 
will not succeed. If Putin thinks he is going to pull the wool over his 
eyes or box him into a corner, Putin is in for a very rude shock.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________