[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 933]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    RUSSIAN THREAT TO U.S. DEMOCRACY

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the freedom to live in a democratic society 
with freedom of speech, assembly, press, and religion are rights 
Americans hold most precious.
  Not so in Putin's Russia. Putin's Russia brutally invaded Ukraine in 
2013, resulting, to date, in over 10,000 war dead, with millions of 
displaced persons. The war grinds on.
  Dozens and dozens of Putin's critics in the press have ended up dead, 
murdered for expressing their views. In 2015, Boris Nemstov, about to 
lead an assembly in favor of Ukrainian independence in Moscow, was 
murdered on the stairs near the Kremlin.
  Georgiy Gondgadze, editor of the news Website Ukrayinska Pravda, 
featured critical articles about Putin ally Leonid Kuchma. He 
disappeared in the year 2000, and his headless body was discovered in a 
forest more than 40 miles from home.
  Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist, was murdered in the 
elevator of her block of flats in 2006.
  And Paul Klebnikov, an American, who was chief editor of the Russian 
edition of Forbes, was killed in 2004, likely by hired assassins.
  All dead, no investigations, no justice. This is Putin's Russia.
  President-elect Trump best be very wary of whom he showers praise 
upon, for the cock is crowing too close to home.

                          ____________________