Ukraine Under Siege
Floor Speech
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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as Western Europe strains with more than 1 million refugees fleeing war in the Middle East and enduring terrible conditions, I rise tonight to address another growing humanitarian crisis in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine.
The free world has experienced time and again what happens when it fails to support innocents caught by fate under the brutal grip of war and oppression. Today that reality looms largely over Europe and surely over Ukraine, a nation of freedom-seeking people under siege outnumbered and outgunned due to Russia's invasion on Ukraine's eastern front. So Europe in the western end as well as the eastern faces major displacement and humanitarian needs not seen since World War II.
Ukrainians are fighting to choose their own path, and surely America, with our moral leadership, can find a way to help the beleaguered people of Ukraine survive the siege and the onset of a bitter winter, with climates that can be unforgiving, with temperatures falling as low or more than 25 degrees below zero.
To not attend to Ukraine now risks Ukraine accessing to the free world. If one looks at the size of Ukraine in Europe, imagine if Ukraine could access to be part of greater Europe. That is all held in abeyance now and also risks millions more potential refugees fleeing from Ukraine to Western Europe for sustenance and more.
I call on the Obama administration to address the growing humanitarian crisis in Europe, not just on the western end, but on the eastern end in Ukraine. This is a challenge that can be met. America has done this before. The humanitarian need in Ukraine is immediate and growing.
I include in the Record evidence of this growing crisis by the major religious leaders of Ukraine from all confessions, representing, imagine, nearly 90 percent of the faithful of Ukraine. These denominations include Baptist, Pentecostals, Muslims, Reformed Church, the Lutheran Church, Jewish religious organizations, Evangelicals, the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Bible Society, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Christian Evangelical Church. It is a very, very long list.
I am going to read this in the Record as well as place it in the Record. This was sent to President Obama. A delegation, over this last month, from Ukraine, of its top religious leaders presented the Obama administration with a request. Let me read it.
``We, the undersigned of the All Ukrainian Council of Churches and religious organizations and representing Ukraine's diverse religious community, appeal to you on behalf of the people of Ukraine to help address the humanitarian catastrophe, Mr. President, gripping our country. The needs are enormous, ranging from medical supplies to everyday items, such as food, water, and clothing.''
They don't even ask for new clothing. They are willing to take used shoes from the United States of America.
``While the global news media regularly reports on Russia's war against Ukraine, government reforms and financial challenges, there is rarely any mention of the extraordinary dimensions of the human suffering caused by Moscow's aggression. While Ukraine certainly needs greater military, financial, and political assistance, our focus here, as religious leaders, must be on the humanitarian aspect.
``As you know, according to the United Nations, over 5 million people''--5 million--``including 1.7 million children, are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.''
I brought a chart to the floor that shows pictures of just a few of these children.
``8,000 people have died and over 17,000 have been injured and wounded. There are over 1,390,000 displaced people, including 174,000 children.''
Here is one child whose only dwelling has been in a bomb shelter since the time of his birth.
``The challenges of this human tragedy are overwhelming. Even the most conservative estimates show that over 65 percent of projected needs have yet to be met--even on the level of pledges.
``As representatives of the interfaith community, we witness on a daily basis the challenges and needs of people suffering because of this war. And with the onset of winter, an already dire situation will only get worse. We pray for their lives and for the future of our country.
``While we are grateful for the assistance provided by the United States Government to date, we know that the need is so much greater. Thus, we appeal to you,'' President Obama, ``to increase assistance and to activate the full potential of the National Guard State Partnership Program and the Partnership for Peace as instruments for alleviating the humanitarian catastrophe. One of the stated goals of the Partnership for Peace is to `provide a framework for enhanced political and military cooperation for joint multilateral crisis management activities, such as humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping.' Ukraine was the first post-Soviet country to join the Partnership for Peace in 1993.
``In addition to the assistance provided by the US government, we, during our travels throughout the United States, have come to personally witness the great generosity of the American people expressed through numerous spontaneous initiatives to ship medical and humanitarian supplies to Ukraine.
``Time is of the essence, Mr. President.''
They are begging.
``The people of Ukraine need to know that they are not forgotten in their time for need. The instruments anticipated by the National Guard State Partnership and Partnership for Peace programs will allow the American people to more effectively and rapidly access and deliver already available medical and humanitarian supplies to Ukraine--literally within days. We each represent distribution networks''--through their various religious confessions--``that cooperate with each other; we now ask for the resources to meet the growing human needs.
``We pray that God grant you guidance, wisdom and bless you and the great American nation. God bless the United States and Ukraine. Sincerely.''
And I place all their names in the Record.
The people of the world must meet this moral imperative. The United Nations has reported that 2.6 million Ukrainians have been displaced by the current conflict in eastern Ukraine--so unnecessary--because of Russia's invasion. A staggering 5 million Ukrainians currently need humanitarian survival assistance.
I met with one religious leader who came to Washington. I said: What are you finding?
He said: Congresswoman, we are in Kharkiv. We need shoes, even used shoes, for the children.
Currently, less than half of those in need receive any assistance at all. If Russian aggression were to trigger a flight of these Ukrainians westward, it would also add to the dangerous, destabilizing stress to Europe's already-stretched refugee services as a result
of what is happening with the immigration and refugee resettlement from the Middle East.
The situation in Ukraine is far from contained. According to a recent report by Refugees International, approximately 2 million Ukrainians live close to the cease-fire lines separating Ukrainian and Russian-backed forces.
It is hard to see some of these pictures that are on this chart, but what they basically show are bombed-out buildings, bridges that are completely destroyed, old women living in buildings where there are no roofs or windows in eastern Ukraine, children living in bomb shelters, and people just, unfortunately, killed because of Russian shelling.
A Ukrainian and Russian peace settlement likely will take a while, but another 2 million people are living under control of Russian-backed forces. The basic needs of these civilians go unmet daily. Shockingly, most international aid work has been suspended there, and there are hardly any news stories about this. Aid workers have been ejected from regions that are called Luhansk and Donetsk by the Russian-backed fighters.
Some refugees, torn from their villages and towns, have managed to stay in Ukraine and survive even after being driven from their homes by violence. How they are doing this, I simply don't know. But these internally displaced are overwhelming the already limited resources of Ukraine's local governments, which are already stretched thin by Russia's invasion. These 1.5 million internally displaced Ukrainians lack durable housing or jobs to pay for food or support their families.
Don't forget, with Russia's invasion, the value of their currency has just plummeted. Everything is so much more expensive. How people are making it, I simply don't know.
We often talk about refugees in abstract numbers. But inside these numbers are the stories and faces of individuals. I just wish people could see the eyes of these parents looking into the future that is so uncertain and so daunting.
Ukrainian children in these conflict zones are being born under conditions that most Americans couldn't even imagine, never having lived without the imminent threat of death or loss. Many risk becoming stateless, as they have been unable to receive birth certificates, passports, and school certificates. In looking into the eyes of children, I am again reminded of the urgency of this crisis.
As freedom-loving nations grapple with the Ukrainian crisis, let us recall the nations of the European continent remain America's most enduring allies in liberty. To not measure up to meet the current internal challenge for Europe is to walk away from liberty's call at freedom's edge in our time.
Existing efforts to assist Ukraine's eastern regions face a daunting set of challenges. Roads leading to Ukrainians trapped in separatist-held areas are difficult to navigate. There is a photo here. I mean, they are walking across rubble, down very steep embankments.
Making matters worse, many of these routes are now scarred by the ravages of war. Roads and bridges have been completely destroyed. On roads running through conflict areas, Russian-backed fighters require registration by any humanitarian group seeking access to the region. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what life is like there?
The United Nations is the only aid group allowed to even enter the Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine. Even the U.N. was prevented from delivering aid to eastern Ukraine for 3 months as people suffered. And then on November 9, just a couple weeks ago, the U.N. was finally able to deliver a convoy of nine trucks carrying vital aid to the city of Luhansk, including 10,000 blankets, 10,000 towels, 5,000 buckets, and a similar number of jerricans and plastic sheets, cement and timber for shelter repairs, and other winterization need and domestic items. That was to one town, and it did not completely serve their enormous needs.
As the U.N. agency head for Ukraine said: ``This is a small drop in the ocean of needs ..... in these conflict-affected areas.''
Can you imagine, millions of people displaced but only 10,000 blankets? Millions of people, 10,000 blankets.
Delivery of basic medical supplies also faces obstacles. There is a shortage of medications that treat critical and common diseases.
After his organization was forced out of Donetsk by Russian operatives, Dr. Bart Janssens, director of operations at Doctors Without Borders, said the following: ``We are almost the only organization providing treatment for tuberculosis in prisons, insulin for diabetic patients, and hemodialysis products to treat kidney failure. Thousands of patients suffering from chronic, potentially fatal diseases will now be left with little or no assistance.''
This is the situation Ukraine faces in real time. What will the world do? What will the United States do with so many storehouses of used clothing, used blankets, or anything to help sustain life there?
As temperatures fall across that region, shelter assistance has to be delivered quickly to people living in buildings without windows, without doors, without roofs, and, most often, without heat. Thousands of displaced people need warm blankets, winter clothing, and shoes, as well as coal and heating fuels.
If the free world fails to act, it must prepare for the reality that, come spring, we will discover more elderly who are dead, more who are ill, more children who have fallen into illness and have probably died, simply cut off from assistance, who succumbed to starvation and the cold, needlessly adding to the over 8,000 who have already lost their lives in this Russian-directed invasion.
America, as a nation, has long been one of supporting freedom and economic stability across our world. Let me remind you that in a 1947 speech laying out what would become the Marshall Plan for Europe following World War II's devastation, war-weary America stood the test of liberty.
And one of our greatest Americans, a statesman, a general, and then Secretary of State, General George C. Marshall, observed the dire post-war economic conditions in Europe. And despite America's exhaustion from World War II, he urged American involvement and support of European recovery, noting that:
``It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace.''
Those words apply to Ukraine today, as they did to Western Europe after World War II.
General Marshall continued, saying, ``Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.''
He added that struggling nations must take the lead in their own rebuilding and that America's role should be a supporting one.
It was really remarkable to go back and look at the films of the brilliant airlift from World War II and see what this country did. This crisis is not commensurate with what happens after World War II, but we have a model. We know what to do; we know how to do it. Why aren't we doing it?
I include in the Record separate statements from three religious leaders who are begging the United States of America and its President to pay particular attention to the humanitarian needs of Ukraine: remarks by Patriarch Filaret, Ukraine Orthodox Church; the Archbishop of Ukraine, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; and also Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, head of the Jewish faiths that have presence in that country.
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Ms. KAPTUR. The United States has more than just a moral and strategic duty to the sovereign people of Ukraine. Twenty years ago, the United States, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom came together to sign the Budapest Memorandum.
This agreement reaffirmed the common commitment of those signatory nations ``to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.'' And in return for that promise of protecting those borders, Ukraine dismantled its vast nuclear weapons complex, the third largest in the world.
With that memorandum in hand, Ukraine did what it promised, but what about the other signatories to that agreement?
Today, the Budapest Memorandum appears to be a hollow promise. It comes as little surprise that Russia would break that promise, but it disappoints me to no end that the free world, led by the United States of America, seems reluctant to honor its promises to take a more effective role as a coalition of nations and civil society organizations to help Ukraine stand on its own in the face of internal carnage perpetrated by Russia.
NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, a man who knows an enormous amount about that continent, recently expressed his deep concern that our focus has been pulled away from Russia's proxy invasion of Ukraine. ``Folks have taken their eye off of Ukraine a little bit because of Syria,'' he said.
According to him, the situation is similar to how the world lost focus on the Russian invasion of Crimea, which the United States still considers Ukrainian territory, after Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and triggered the current war.
Fighting in the Donbass region of Ukraine has fluctuated, but skirmishes continue and Ukrainian territory remains under Russian occupation, with no withdrawal in sight.
Congress took initial steps to address Ukraine's need last year, just about a year ago, with the Ukraine Freedom Support Act--legislation we fought hard to pass and which most of our colleagues voted to support. However, conditions continue to worsen.
A report done by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe acknowledges that the fighting in the east, which began in the spring of 2014, has resulted in extensive damage to schools and medical facilities, leaving the local population increasingly dependent on outside aid. Assistance is needed to meet basic needs and access to clean water, which is a problem already for 1.3 million Ukrainians at a minimum.
Two weeks ago, I sent a letter to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to call for the United States to work with the Ukrainian Government and Russia to restore access to humanitarian workers and to allow aid to proceed.
In particular, I identified a need for access to--and this is in working with the religious leaders of Ukraine across confessions for these items--winterization activities, including blankets, quilts, kerosene, heating stoves; direct financial assistance to these religious groups to help them help others; water pumping station equipment to prevent freezing; electrical repair kits and tools; coal; batteries; clothing; and everyday necessities, including medical equipment, basic and specialized medicines, emergency medical kits, shoes, socks, long underwear, coats, mittens, hats; redevelopment assistance, including economic aid and tools as well as equipment to repair homes, bridges, and roads.
They don't even request new material. They just request help. I just think to myself, how much is thrown away in landfills across this country, items that still have good wear and good possibility? How much is thrown away at construction sites? And what we can do to help the people of Ukraine? These items are more than just objects to the people of Ukraine. They are life itself right now.
The people of Ukraine want desperately to stand on their own, access to the European continent, and to govern themselves in the light of liberty. I have seen it in their eyes. Let us help them weather this terrible storm now when they need it most.
My heavens, if the United States of America could lead the Berlin airlift after World War II in those old, tired planes, sending goods to the people of Europe, to the people of Western Europe, and to give them hope and sustenance, you mean to tell me that the America of the 21st century can't figure this out, especially when Congress has put money in the budget of the Department of Defense and the Department of State to carry this out, working in cooperation with organizations across this great land?
Last month, the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, a globally unique coming-together of diverse religious faiths which represent 85 percent of the Ukrainian population, presented President Obama with a letter I referenced earlier, appealing on behalf of the people of Ukraine to help address the humanitarian catastrophe gripping that Nation.
Each is a daily witness to the challenges and needs of the people suffering because of this unnecessary, brutal war, where over 8,000 have already been killed; 17,610 wounded--that was a figure as of October--2.6 million people internally displaced; 5 million in need of aid, including 1.7 million children, and one in five homes of displaced families damaged or destroyed. Surely, the free world can figure this out.
I do have to say a word about this. A few weeks ago, I stood here in Washington with many distinguished Ukrainian leaders, including the First Lady of Ukraine, Maryna Poroshenko; His Holiness, the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus'-Ukraine Filaret; and my dear friend and fellow Ukraine Caucus cochair, Congressman Sander Levin of Michigan, to dedicate a memorial here in our Nation's capital to the 1932-1933 Soviet Union's forced starvation of between 2.5 million and 7.5 million Ukrainians whose names are lost to history forever.
I think America should also consider doing this humanitarian lift to Ukraine because, frankly, no place on Earth suffered more in the last century from brutal tyranny than did Ukraine. Perhaps something is owed to those sacrificial people for what they endured and for the spark of liberty that still breathes so strongly in their hearts and minds.
In marking the brutal tragedy of the forced famine, called the Holodomor, I am reminded of the importance of teaching about the cost of liberty, the need to fight for it, and the legacy of that sacrificial people.
Through this memorial, we seek to better guard against any oppressive regime that would seek to rule over any people, for, at that time, our Nation failed to reveal and respond to that ongoing brutality of forced starvation in Ukraine. Had the free world acted then, we might have changed the fate of millions, but that did not happen.
Let us not repeat the blindness of the past. America must act with dispatch to support the freedom-loving people of Ukraine. Time and again, in moments when the world has found itself at a crossroads, American leadership and action has made the difference.
We must be prepared to join with others in this effort to save the children, to save the families, to save the people of Ukraine, and, in doing so, to let
liberty march forward. We must do the right thing for our brothers and sisters in liberty. America must act, and we must act as leaders. Ukraine is waiting. The world is waiting.
I call upon the President of the United States and the Obama administration to do what is necessary and achievable to meet the growing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, to relieve the unnecessary suffering of their people, and to prevent a gigantic refugee crisis from spilling over and impacting European stability.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Costello), who could not be here tonight for this Special Order, supports these efforts. His formal statement includes the important role that the people of southeastern Pennsylvania have played in keeping a focus on Ukraine and this ongoing tragedy and what the United States of America can do at very little cost to the people here by the mobilization of the hearts of the American people to provide humanitarian assistance to help save Ukraine in our own time and day.
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