[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 785-787]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       RUSSIA AND PRESIDENT PUTIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today as co-chair and 
founding member of the Polish, Hungarian, and Ukrainian House Caucuses.
  I am also a strong defender of NATO and of its purpose in linking the 
free nations of Europe and the United States through this historic, 
hard-won alliance and security treaty among Europe's sovereign nations 
that respect the rule of law and our shared passion for liberty.
  Our Nation and NATO's members paid the ultimate price in the last 
century for our priceless gift of liberty. We won the cold war, and our 
most treasured democratic values of life, liberty, freedom of assembly, 
press, and religion are under siege today by a predatory and repressive 
Russia. Go no further than any major business in your district and ask 
them how many times they are hacked daily by Russian predators--to get 
a sense of what is going on.
  My purpose this morning is to remind our citizenry of the continuing 
and major, real threat to our NATO alliance and to the destabilization 
of Europe by Russia that necessitates our strengthening the alliance, 
not weakening it, to ward off Vladimir Putin's expansionist dreams.
  I must say I am concerned by our President-elect's loose talk about 
Russia. His naive assumption that personal friendships with Russia's 
oligarchs--some of whom are active members of Russia's notorious 
mafia--can overcome strategic, expansionist imperatives that fill 
Vladimir Putin's mind are truly not in America's interest.
  So let's review some recent history.
  Domestically, Mr. Putin has suppressed the basic freedoms of the 
Russian people. His leadership has resulted in countless infringements 
of human rights violations and other actions that directly conflict 
with our foundational values in Western democracies.
  Putin has an aggressive and very hostile foreign policy toward us--
toward the United States--and our top allies. Russia has invaded 
neighboring sovereign countries, including the Republics of Georgia and 
Ukraine. Russia has threatened and harassed U.S. military personnel and 
diplomats overseas, not in the last century, now, orchestrating an 
anti-American propaganda campaign--the largest since World War II--both 
in our country and around the world; and it is conducting cyber 
warfare, as I speak, against our country, our government, our 
interests, as well as European governments; against political 
institutes; against our think tanks; against our State voter data 
systems, as our intelligence services have just informed us; and 
against our cities and counties, journalists, and individuals.
  Information about Putin's aggressive behavior is well-documented and 
is specifically highlighted in the intelligence briefings that our 
President-elect began to receive when he secured the Republican Party 
nomination last

[[Page 786]]

year. Despite this, throughout his campaign and as President-elect, Mr. 
Trump continues to praise and support Putin. He has even taken the 
foreign dictator's side over those of the leaders of our country he was 
elected to represent.
  Here are examples:
  December 18, 2015: During an interview on ``Morning Joe,'' host Joe 
Scarborough asked Mr. Trump about Putin's alleged killing of 
journalists and political opponents. Trump answered: ``He's running his 
country, and at least he's a leader. Unlike what we have in this 
country.''
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a list of dozens of journalists 
in Russia who have been murdered in cold blood because they were 
reporting on corruption, on growing repression in that society--on what 
Russia was executing around the world.

    A Partial List of Journalists Who Have Died in Repressive Russia

       1. July 16, 2000: Igor Domnikov, an editor and reporter for 
     the independent Novaya Gazeta who covered local government 
     corruption, died after being attacked. His assailants are 
     serving prison terms but the ex-government official who: 
     orchestrated the attack was not convicted.
       2. July 26, 2000: Sergey Novikov, the owner of the 
     independent radio station Vesna, was shot in his apartment. 
     Novikov was a vocal critic of local government corruption and 
     received death threats prior to his murder. The case remains 
     unsolved.
       3. Sept. 21, 2000: Radio Liberty correspondent Iskandar 
     Khatloni died from an attack by an unknown assailant. 
     Khatloni, who was also a poet and former BBC correspondent, 
     was covering human rights abuses in Chechnya. The case 
     remains unsolved.
       4. Oct. 3, 2000: Sergey Ivanov, the director of the 
     independent and influential TV station Lada, was shot in his 
     apartment. The case remains unsolved.
       5. Nov. 21, 2000: Cameraman Adam Tepsurgayev, who shot most 
     of Reuters' footage from the second Chechen conflict, was 
     shot dead in a Chechen village. The Russian government 
     contends that Chechen guerrillas murdered Tepsurgayev, but 
     local residents were doubtful. The case remains unsolved.
       6. Feb. 3, 2001: Photographer Valery Kondalkov was killed 
     after the publication of photos he took of the private 
     mansions of urban elite in the city of Armavir. The case 
     remains unsolved.
       7. Sept. 18, 2001: Eduard Markevich, the editor and 
     publisher of a local newspaper, was shot in the back after 
     receiving threats and surviving a previous attack. Markevich 
     frequently wrote about local corruption and die suspected 
     perpetrators of his murder are government officials. The case 
     remains unsolved.
       8. March 9, 2002: Natalya Skryl, a local business reporter, 
     died from an attack. She was planning to publish an article 
     on the struggle for the control of a local metal plant. The 
     case remains unsolved.
       9. April 29, 2002: Valery Ivanov, editor of the independent 
     newspaper Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye, was shot eight times in 
     the head. His newspaper is known for his coverage of local 
     organized crime, drug trafficking and corruption. The case 
     remains unsolved.
       10. April 18, 2003: Dmitry Shvets, the deputy director of 
     the independent television station TV-21, known for his 
     critical reporting on politicians, was shot dead outside the 
     station's offices. He had been investigating a mayoral 
     candidate's links to organized crime. The case remains 
     unsolved.
       11. July 3, 2003: Novaya Gazeta deputy editor Yuri 
     Shchekochikhin died from an acute allergic reaction while 
     those close to him believe he was poisoned. Shchekochikhin 
     was working on a corruption case involving high-ranking 
     government officials and had received threats. The government 
     has not opened an investigation and says there's no evidence 
     of foul play.
       12. July 3, 2003: Local television reporter Alikhan Guliyev 
     was shot in his apartment building. Guliyev had accused an 
     influential politician of campaign violations, and had 
     survived an attempt on his life in 2002. The case remains 
     unsolved.
       13. Oct 9, 2003: A year after the murder of his predecessor 
     Valery Ivanov, Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye editor Aleksei 
     Sidorov was stabbed by two unknown assailants after receiving 
     threats. Officials initially agreed he was murdered in 
     retaliation for his investigative work, but the case remains 
     unsolved.
       14. July 9, 2004: Forbes Russia founding editor Paul 
     Klebnikov was shot in Moscow in a contract killing. The 
     magazine had recently published a feature on Russia's richest 
     people, and Klebnikov himself had written books and articles 
     about business, crime and corruption in Russia. A decade 
     after his death, the case remains unsolved, prompting 
     Secretary of State John Kerry to urge Russia to bring the 
     perpetrators to justice.
       15. May 21, 2005: Cameraman Pavel Makeev, while reporting 
     on illegal drag racing, was found dead on the side of a road. 
     Though his death was initially classified as a traffic 
     accident, Makeev's colleagues say his death was related to 
     his work. The case has been reopened but remains unsolved.
       16. June 28, 2005: Magomedzagid Varisov, who wrote critical 
     political columns for the weekly Novoye Delo, was shot in his 
     car by unknown assailants with machine guns in Dagestan. 
     Varisov had received numerous threats through years. Three 
     suspects were killed in October 2005, and the unsolved case 
     was closed.
       17. Jan. 8, 2006: Reporter Vagif Kochetkov, who wrote for 
     the newspapers Trud and Tulskii Molodoi Kommunar, died from 
     an attack. Officials labeled his death the result of a 
     robbery, though only work-related documents and his cellphone 
     were taken, while his wallet and fur coat were not. A local 
     businessman was charged with the attack but later said he was 
     coerced into confessing.
       18. Oct. 7, 2006: Renowned journalist and human rights 
     activist Anna Politkovskaya was shot in her apartment after 
     receiving, and narrowingly escaping, numerous death threats. 
     The five men hired to kill her were convicted and sentenced 
     seven years later, but whoever ordered the murder (believed 
     to be $150,000 contract) remains unknown.
       19. Nov. 30, 2006: Prominent investigative journalist 
     Maksim Maksimov was declared dead. He disappeared two years 
     earlier while investigating local corruption in St. 
     Petersburg as well as several unsolved murders. The case 
     remains unsolved.
       20. March 2, 2007: Defense correspondent Ivan Safronov died 
     from mysteriously falling from a fifth-floor window while 
     investigating the sale of Russian arms to Syria and Iran. 
     Safronov embarrassed military officials with reports on 
     problems with Russia's nuclear program. His death has been 
     officially ruled a suicide, but his colleagues and friends 
     say he had no reason to kill himself.
       21. Aug. 31, 2008: Magomed Yevloyev, owner of the 
     independent news site Ingushetia, was shot while in police 
     custody. Officials had been attempting to close down 
     Ingushetia for extremism; the site had covered corruption, 
     human rights abuses, unsolved murders, and voting fraud in 
     the 2008 presidential election. Yevloyev was detained as a 
     witness in investigation of a local explosion, and police say 
     the shooting was an accident.
       22. Sept. 2, 2008: Television editor Telman (Abdulla) 
     Alishayev was shot by unknown assailants in Dagestan. 
     Alishayev produced an anti-radical Islam documentary two 
     years earlier and received death threats from radical groups.
       23. Jan. 19, 2009: Anastasia Baburova, a freelancer for the 
     opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was shot by 
     ultranationalists in a double murder. Baburova had covered 
     the rise of neo-Nazism and race-motivated crimes in Moscow. 
     Her murderers, members of a neo-Nazi group, have been 
     sentenced.
       24. March 30, 2009: Layout designer Sergei Protazanov died 
     after an attack by unknown assailants. Protazanov was part of 
     the editorial staff of Grazhdanskoe sogalsie, a newspaper 
     known for its critical coverage of the ruling party of 
     Russia. The case remains unsolved.
       25. July 15, 2009: The fifth Novaya Gazeta journalist 
     murdered since 2000, Natalya Estemirova was kidnapped and 
     shot execution-style in Chechnya. Her colleagues believe that 
     Chechen officials ordered the Kremlin-backed assassination, 
     as Estemirova had reported on human rights violations 
     committed by authorities in the region. The official 
     investigation pinned the murder on a Chechen rebel who was 
     killed by an air strike, but her colleagues and human rights 
     activists believe this is a cover-up.
       26. Aug. 11, 2009: Abdulmalik Akhmedilov, an editor for the 
     independent news website Hakikat and editor-in-chief of the 
     political monthly Sogratl, was shot in his car in Dagestan. 
     Akhmedilov was critical of government efforts to curb 
     religious and political freedom and inaction in investigating 
     assassinations. The case remains unsolved.
       27. Dec. 15, 2011: Independent newspaper founder 
     Gadzhimurad Kamalov was shot outside his office in Dagestan. 
     His newspaper Chernovik was known for its investigations in 
     government corruption, police abuse and Islamic extremism, 
     and his name appeared on an anonymous hit list.
       28. Dec. 5, 2012: News anchor Kazbek Gekkiyev, who covered 
     social issues, was shot in the head while returning home from 
     work. Several reporters at his state-controlled station, 
     VGTRK, had received threats allegedly from Islamist 
     separatist fighters.
       29. April 8, 2013: Mikhail Beketov, founding editor of the 
     Khimiki, died after a 2008 attack by unknown assailants that 
     left him severely brain-damaged, amputated and unable to 
     speak. Beketov had covered government corruption and the 
     planned destruction of the Khimki forest to make way for a 
     planned toll road. In retaliation for his reporting, his car 
     had been set on fire and his dog left dead on his doorstep. 
     He never fully recovered from the attack and died five years 
     later in the hospital.
       30. May 18, 2013: Nikolai Potapov, a former government 
     official and founding editor of the local Selsovet newspaper, 
     was shot in the Stavropol region. Selsovet was known for its 
     coverage of government corruption.

[[Page 787]]


       31. July 9, 2013: Akhmednabi Akhmednabiye, deputy editor of 
     the independent newspaper Novoye Delo, was shot dead outside 
     his house in Dagestan. He covered government corruption, 
     abductions, police abuse and torture and had received 
     numerous threats for his work. His name appeared on an 
     anonymous hit list.
       32. Dec. 4, 2013: Arkady Lander, editor of the opposition 
     newspaper Mestnaya, died after an 2010 attack by unknown 
     assailants in Sochi. He underwent operations and 
     hospitalizations for three years after his attack, which left 
     him amputated and with a fractured skull. Lander had covered 
     local elections and distributed his newspaper free of charge. 
     The statute of limitations ran out on his case.
       33. Aug. 1, 2014: The body of independent journalist and 
     civil activist Timur Kuashev was discovered in the woods 
     after he disappeared a day earlier. Kuashev was threatened by 
     police after reporting on civil liberty and human rights 
     violations by security forces.
  Ms. KAPTUR. The interview with Mr. Scarborough took place the day 
after Mr. Putin praised and propagandized Mr. Trump as ``bright and 
talented'' and the ``absolute leader of the Presidential race.'' That 
was about a year before our election. Months later, the President-elect 
asked the Russian Federation to hack Hillary Clinton's email. How about 
that by our President-elect?
  September 8, 2016: At NBC's Commander-in-Chief Forum, Mr. Trump 
praised Putin by saying:

       If Putin says great things about me, I'm going to say great 
     things about him . . . I've already said he is very much of a 
     leader. The man has very strong control over his country.

  He is right about that. If you speak against Putin, you can be 
murdered in Russia.
  America, pay attention.

                          ____________________