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Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to offer some remarks on the situation in Europe and the prospects for peace in Ukraine.

We should start with recent positive developments. President Trump and President Zelenskyy have demonstrated remarkable resolve and remarkable wherewithal. Just this week, we heard news from the peace talks in Saudi Arabia. Ukraine publicly expressed openness to prisoner exchanges, a welcome development. Notably, Russia did not express such willingness. We should applaud Ukraine's overtures. An agreement is in reach that reflects the common cause of the United States and Ukraine.

Separately, much ink has been spilled on the economic investment deal. Less has been said about why the United States is interested in an investment deal with Ukraine. President Trump recognizes that America is better off when Ukraine is free, strong, and industrious. The economic investment deal shows that our President wants peace and that he wants an honorable peace, one that ensures the prosperity and protection of Ukraine and the United States.

This peace will require that Russia put down its weapons in an enduring and verifiable way. It is clear that Vladimir Putin does not share President Trump's desire for peace. As Putin's representatives prepare to sit down with American diplomats, President Putin has ordered salvo after salvo of missiles and drones to strike Ukrainian apartments, killing noncombatant women and children. These are not the gestures of a statesman who wants to negotiate peace. We are dealing with a tyrant who speaks the language of war and terror. We have to deal with him, but that is who he is.

In recent decades, several successive U.S. Presidents have extended the hand of peace to Mr. Putin. Each one of them had different tactics, but none of them achieved the outcome they desire. In this series of failed diplomacy, the common denominator was not the American Presidents, regardless of party. The common denominator was and is Russia's dictator, Vladimir Putin, a war criminal. So we need to remind the American people exactly what kind of strongman we are dealing with here, the kind of strongman we are trying to negotiate with, the kind of strongman we are forced to negotiate with.

Vladimir Putin, regrettably, is not interested in peace. He is interested in a phony deal. He has shown this with his words, his acts of violence, and the peace agreements he has shredded.

Dictators frequently tell us who they really are. In 2007, Putin stood before the Munich Security Conference, and he rejected a world in which nations cooperate. In his other writings, he has publicly mourned the collapse of the Soviet empire, and he dreams of its resurrection.

In 2021, President Putin wrote an essay laying the groundwork for his invasion of Ukraine. This was a year before the recent invasion. In it, he rejected the very right of the Ukrainian people to exist as a distinct and self-governing nation. In writing, the essay is full of lies. It would have made Adolf Hitler proud. But it shows one thing is true: Mr. Putin is a Russian imperialist to the core. Here is a man who believes the greatest historical tragedy of the last 40 years was the collapse of the Soviet power and influence over Eastern Europe.

Putin publicly proclaims his delusions of grandeur but has not stopped at words and speeches. He has used any means necessary to continue his decades-long political warfare against NATO, and he has ruthlessly worked to achieve the empire he craves.

In the year after his Munich speech, Vladimir Putin and his army invaded their neighbor, the Republic of Georgia. In the year after his essay about Ukraine, he invaded Ukraine. Mr. Putin no longer technically works for the KGB but still thinks like a KBG agent--the kind who uses chemical weapons to poison people in Russia and all over the world, exacting revenge on his critics without regard for international borders.

He jails reporters and activists. Why does he do this? Because dictators actually live in fear of their own people. Putin has imprisoned scores of Americans in Russian gulags. He has killed and kidnapped American citizens across the globe. His commandos have targeted our soldiers in Afghanistan. He has no respect for our country or for human life in his country or any other country.

And he has the weaponry to back up his threats. Mr. Putin sits atop the world's largest and most diverse nuclear arsenal. And I might add that this arsenal is postured specifically at us to destroy the United States.

In another perverse action--I have to say this--Mr. Putin has tried to co-opt Christianity, if you can believe that. He has twisted a religion of repentance into a propaganda machine. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow professes to lead the Russian Orthodox Church. In reality, Kirill is a puppet of Vladimir Putin. His father baptized Vladimir Putin. And now Kirill follows his father's footsteps by sanctifying the dictator's crimes.

Kirill has blessed the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, absurdly claiming that the Russians are fighting against evil. As patriarch, he blessed the invasion. As Russia bombs Ukrainian women and children, Kirill invokes God's name to justify Putin's butchery. Kirill is the very definition of the Prophet Isaiah's portrait of corruption. Isaiah condemned men like him, those who ``call evil good and good evil.''

Shame on this phony patriarch.

President Putin has publicly shared his imperialistic dreams. He violently pursued those goals even in God's name. Along the way, he has torn to shreds every cease-fire deal he has ever signed. Before World War I, the Kaiser's regime in Germany called a treaty ``a mere scrap of paper.'' Well, Vladimir Putin feels the same. He has no regard for the Budapest Memorandum. He has no regard for the INF Treaty. He has no regard for the Minsk agreement. In each case, Putin has lied, stolen, and misdirected to further his empire-building ambitions. And that is what he is trying to do with negotiations today.

President Trump is interested in peace. President Zelenskyy is interested in peace. Putin values peace as little as any piece of shredded paper he would deceitfully sign.

Many people do not realize that Ukrainians have been valiantly and steadily weakening Putin's forces. Half a million Russian soldiers-- half a million souls--have either been killed or injured so severely that they cannot return to the battlefield. That is half a million Russian moms without sons, wives without husbands. That total is steep, and the blame rests upon one person, the man who ordered the invasion: Vladimir Putin and his imperialistic vision.

Russia is barely managing to sustain this war. And I think the American people do not know this, but Russia is barely hanging on. They are struggling from heavy battlefield costs and economic sanctions. We should not support a peace deal that could let Russia up off the mat and reconstitute its army.

Both the previous and the current Secretaries General of NATO expect that Russia will not be ready to threaten NATO conventionally for 5 to 7 years. The wrong deal with Russia could allow them to be off to the races sooner. And Russia wants just that, as we have seen this week. Putin is trying to work the peace process deceptively to skew it in his favor.

This week, his office has pushed out messages from the peace talks in Riyadh. Putin's officials maintain that the United States is prepared to lift a number of sanctions, sanctions the West imposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I certainly hope that is not true.

These Kremlin officials claim that we will soon readmit Russia to SWIFT. SWIFT, of course, is the global financial system that Russian depends on for global trade. Putin relies on trade to finance his war machine. Russians also think we are prepared to grant sanctions relief for any company that ships goods on vessels flying the Russian flag or they could claim any ties to food production, shipping, and securities. Such a deal would be full of loopholes. Such a deal would be designed to let Russia, which is on the ropes, off the mat.

Mr. Putin's men asked for all of this. Yet they offer little in return. They won't even talk about prisoner exchanges. That is breathtaking, especially when Ukraine has publicly expressed openness to a cease-fire. They are the ones that have publicly said they will agree to a cease-fire. Mr. Putin and his negotiators have never proclaimed that. The Ukrainians, who have been ruthlessly attacked, have extended the hand of peace. Russia still has not even though it demands so much. Putin says he is willing to work toward peace, but his demands show that he is lying. His demands make it clear he intends to use the sanctions relief to rearm.

It would be a mistake to grant sanctions relief to Russia without reciprocal support for Ukraine. Doing so would devastate the prospect of a lasting peace. Let me repeat. Mr. Putin has never agreed to a cease-fire, to a treaty that resulted in a lasting peace. As we negotiate in Saudi Arabia, the United States must remember that Russia is barely managing to sustain this war.

The economic and battlefield price is very costly for Mr. Putin. Undoing these sanctions would instantly lower Putin's cost. It would evaporate the leverage his financial penalties have given to the United States and the free world.

As I close, let me reiterate, many have tried to negotiate with Vladimir Putin on his terms. I think President Trump is beginning to understand that peace comes through American and Ukrainian strength; that dictators respond to power because it is the only thing they respect. We need to see this Russian dictator and war criminal for what he is: a murderous dictator who hopes he can back us into a corner during the peace process and thus pursue another invasion.

If Vladimir Putin lives up to a cease-fire or peace treaty with Ukraine, it will be the first time ever. Vladimir Putin has a long track record, and it is filled with lies, violence, and treachery. That is whom we are dealing with. We have to deal with him, but that is whom we are dealing with. Getting a deal with him will be a challenge. We must bear history in mind if we are to reach a settlement that benefits the free countries of the world.

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