Ukraine
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, another point I would like to make is that over the weekend, we managed to avoid a government shutdown with a 45- day extension, a bipartisan continuing resolution. Keeping the lights on is a win for the American people. It used to be considered just normal procedure around here. Now it is a reason for celebration and victory because we have such a discordant and dissident group heading up Congress on both sides of the Rotunda.
I am disappointed that, unfortunately, the continuing resolution did not include critical funding for the war in Ukraine. It is impossible to explain to my constituency why, when the Ukrainians are in the midst of fighting and dying every single day for their nation against the war criminal Vladimir Putin, this Congress somehow or another managed to pass a spending bill for 45 days and not include more funding for the Ukrainian cause. This assistance is absolutely essential to make sure we stop the aggression of Russia against this tiny country.
A small group of isolationists and Russian sympathizers--largely MAGA extremists in the House--threatened to hold the entire country, the United States, hostage over this funding despite the overwhelming bipartisan support for Ukraine. Ronald Reagan and John McCain must be turning over in their graves.
I am glad that after the vote on Saturday, Senators Schumer, McConnell, Murray, Collins, Coons, and Graham released a joint, bipartisan statement reaffirming the Senate's commitment to supporting Ukraine and addressing the funding in the weeks ahead. I couldn't agree more.
Let's keep this in perspective. The American people have been generous to Ukraine, but this critical assistance that has halted and reversed Russian aggression accounts for only about one-half of 1 percent of all the Federal spending in our country. So for a modest investment by U.S. standards, we are keeping hope and freedom alive in Ukraine while they are offering their lives. Our European allies have stepped up and provided even more assistance than the United States, and I am glad they have. It is a joint effort.
Quite simply, Putin is willing to keep sending Russian conscripts to their death in the hopes that we in the democratic transatlantic alliance will get tired of his war of tyranny. I hope we never do.
Putin is counting on the West, NATO, the United States to grow weary of his Ukrainian war of attrition. We cannot let him prevail by this approach. We have to be organized and unified in our effort.
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