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Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I greatly respect the representation made by my colleague and friend from Mississippi, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Senator Risch, our colleague, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee about timing.

I want to talk about timing because we have just passed the third year of this war. This moment is crucial.

Thank you to Senator Sanders, Senator Van Hollen, Senator Durbin-- soon we will hear from Senator Bennet. We have resolutions that support Ukraine at a critical moment in its history.

I have been there six times. I have come to know President Zelenskyy not only from meetings there, but in Paris, Munich, a number of times here in Washington, DC, and I will never forget my first meeting with him shortly after he was offered an escape. Do you remember what he said to President Biden when he offered a helicopter to exit the country: Don't send me a helicopter; send me ammunition--that courage and determination in the face of Russia coming within just a few miles of his bunker.

I visited him and I then went to Bucha where I saw the remnants of the Russian tanks that came within a 10-minute drive of killing him and taking Kyiv. I also saw the mass graves where women and children were buried after the Russians shot hundreds of them in the back of their head, committing those war crimes that became so despicable in the eyes of the world and resulted in criminal charges against Vladimir Putin. It is the reason why I have urged that we regard the Putin regime as a terrorist organization.

I recognize we are at a critical moment in these negotiations, as well as in Ukraine's 3-yearlong fight. Actually, it is well longer than 3 years because the invasion first occurred in 2014, not long after Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons on the assurance that the free world would come to its aid if its security was ever threatened.

It is that history that Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to remind President Trump and Vice President Vance about last Friday--betrayal of agreements by Vladimir Putin. He is a thug. He understands force. He will assure the security of Ukraine only if force is guaranteed to meet another invasion if this one is stopped.

On these negotiations and the timing, Senator Van Hollen said it well. You don't have to be an expert on the art of the deal to know you go into negotiations from a position of strength. Strength never hurts; it only helps in a negotiation.

We are not dictating an outcome. We are not prescribing what the result of the negotiation should be. We are not telling the President or President Zelenskyy what their positions would be. We are saying to Ukraine: We have your back. We are going to be your backstop.

And at that meeting, which I attended along with the Senator from Mississippi and Senator Van Hollen on that bright, sunny Friday morning, President Zelenskyy was asking us to assure that he had a security backstop. Of course, his preference is to be in NATO--no secret there. But security, as I suggested to him, through some bilateral agreement might be an acceptable outcome.

We are not prescribing what that security should be, but only that Ukraine has support from the American people. That is the purpose of these resolutions. That support strengthens his position.

We are not saying a specific amount of military aid should be provided or a specific negotiating position should be dictated for anyone. But only that--and I read from my resolution--we reaffirm the support of the United States for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine in the face of the illegal invasion of its territory by the Russian Federation and the bonds of friendship and shared values between the people of the United States and allied fighting forces.

Now, by any measure of military success, Ukraine has done the impossible. I am not giving away classified information when I tell you that in the days right after the invasion, we were assured by our military that the Russians would be in Kyiv within weeks. They weren't. The only reason they weren't was because of the ingenuity and inventiveness and just plain guts and grit of the Ukrainian people.

Their success will go down as one of the most important feats of modern warfare in this century, and their accomplishments in the use of drones--an inventive use of drones--in their use of intelligence--our intelligence and their intelligence--in their success in the destruction of half or more of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. They have developed techniques of warfare and platforms with our help that are absolutely remarkable.

On every one of those six trips--in fact, in every meeting that I have had with President Zelenskyy--he has begun by declaring his gratitude for the aid from the United States. On March 3, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which is their Parliament, expressed its ``profound gratitude to President Donald Trump, Congress, and the American people for their firm and consistent support of Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, as well as for the security assistance packages provided to Ukraine, which have helped stabilize the situation on the frontline.''

The people of Ukraine are beyond grateful. If you walk through the streets of Ukraine and you are identified as an American, people will come up to you and thank you. In the Ukrainian community here in the United States, supporters of Ukraine have been thanked again and again and again. I wear a pin--and have done so for some years--with the American and Ukrainian flags. I have a bracelet that has the Ukrainian colors. The people of Ukraine thank me for those insignias of my support.

We all know that Ukraine's fight is our fight and that our national security is at stake because Putin will keep going. If he swallows Ukraine, if he has dinner in Kyiv, he will want to have dinner in Finland and Sweden and Poland. They are NATO allies. We will be obligated to put troops on the ground. The soldiers of Ukraine are saving our soldiers from a fight where they will be in harm's way. They are bleeding and dying for our national security.

So, when we talk about timing, let's recognize that now is the moment to make clear that Ukraine must be as strong as possible for our security if it enters these negotiations.

Let me just finish with this thought: You know, I think it is difficult to describe what it is like to be in Ukraine in the midst of an air attack. On a couple of my visits, we were forced into bunkers when the sirens started. Obviously, we were never injured, and I want to avoid any misrepresentation. I never felt like I was going to be bombed right then and there. But if I had been there 365 days in a year and the apartment house next to me or my school or hospital were bombed and I came out of it and saw the bodies and realized how close I had come and how near death was--day after day after day, the Ukrainian people are living with this nightmare, not to mention the blackouts of electricity, the impacts of their quality of life, the loss of their loved ones, the injuries, and the maiming of young men, whom I have visited.

The Ukrainian people want peace. The Ukrainian people want peace more than any of us. They certainly want peace more than Vladimir Putin, who has no respect for the lives of his people or the Ukrainians. They have fought for 3 years to stay free, to stay independent, to stay sovereign, and they have fought for years before that. The history of their people is one of fighting for their independence. They will continue fighting as long as peace threatens their sovereign and free status. They believe in peace. They want Donald Trump to succeed in achieving peace. We should support them in their goals, in their quest for peace with freedom and sovereignty for their people.

I want to offer my resolution. Res. 112, which was submitted earlier today; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to make clear, first-- absolutely clear--that I deeply respect my colleague from Mississippi, my friend and fellow Member, the leader of the Armed Services Committee, for his commitment to Ukraine. There should be no question that Senator Wicker is committed to Ukraine's freedom and independence. I have traveled with him. I have worked with him. I sat with him just Friday. We have a difference of view. He has access to different facts that I don't. I am going on basic principles, and I must confess I can't cite Scripture for my position. But I think common sense tells me, although he has more knowledge about the negotiations, that supporting Ukraine at this moment--simply saying we have your back; we are your backstop; we are supporting you--can't help but aid their position.

But let me just say, what is most important about this conversation is that we will continue together on both sides of the aisle, in a bipartisan way, to support Ukraine. It isn't about their being less strong, at least in the case of Senator Wicker. I am absolutely sure, and I respect his views on this topic even though we differ, and I hope that this cause will continue to be bipartisan.

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