SUPPORTING UKRAINE'S INDEPENDENCE

On 2025-04-28, Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL-5) delivered a floor speech titled "SUPPORTING UKRAINE'S INDEPENDENCE" in the House.

SUPPORTING UKRAINE'S INDEPENDENCE

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 70 (Monday, April 28, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 70 (Monday, April 28, 2025)] [House] [Pages H1677-H1680] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SUPPORTING UKRAINE'S INDEPENDENCE (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. Kaptur of Ohio was recognized for 30 minutes.) Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this evening, along with several colleagues, I am here to discuss Ukraine and the necessity of Ukraine winning the war [[Page H1678]] against Russia's invasion. I will be joined by Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois and Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania. As I begin, please let me remind the President of our country, our Vice President, and Secretary of State that freedom means never surrender. Liberty must never capitulate to dictatorship. America does not live alone on this Earth. Our Nation lives in a free world alliance, and this alliance is being tested globally every single day. Especially America's leaders cannot turn their back to Russia's murderous forces bearing down including illegally on Ukraine. History is clear. The dictatorship of Russia takes what is not theirs. Russia invades territory that does not belong to it. If one looks at this map, Russia is a vast country of 11 time zones. It does not lack for territory. Here is Ukraine. Just think about that. West of that lies Europe. Study the map. Mr. Speaker, if you know nothing about Europe and that vast continent, think about 11 time zones and then our closest allies in the free world. Let that settle. The facts speak for themselves. If my colleagues need more proof, ask Poland, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and a dozen other countries that Russia covets. They cast off the Russian bear just a few decades ago, and Russia wants them back. Russia taunts our closest military allies across the European Continent. Together, we and our allies honor our collective memory of our collective sacrifice and bloodshed that built the free world that the generation before us gave us. The Trump administration has proposed that the United States abandon and even scold our European allies. Let me be clear. Our Nation intergenerationally and painstakingly has built the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a global fortress of democratic nations. Across Europe, from the ruins of World War I and World War II lie the precious graves of 411,516 American soldiers and--no one knows exactly--35 million to 50 million Europeans who died fighting or in the crossfire. These heroes and heroines fought for the cause of liberty. Then they built a world order in which they attempted to enshrine it. Forged from that coalition of suffering, our joint commitment to defend freedom above all else prevails. This moment for Ukraine--Russia and Ukraine--is a key moment in history. It is our generation's crucial test of freedom or subjugation. No succor can be allowed to a murderous dictatorship, no matter how many of Russia's rich oligarchs seek to plunder and steal from the sacred soils and minerals of Ukraine. The free West must stand united and say no. Lovers of freedom must not ignore history. Putin's illegal invasion of Crimea and other stolen territories in Ukraine should be forbidden and turned back. Conquest is his perversion and his corruption. No stolen territory from Ukraine should be ceded to Putin. Spanning 11 time zones, Russia holds enough territory. Having traveled there many times, Vladimir Putin ought to take care of his own country. They have got major problems. Putin should help his own nation thrive again. He has no need for Ukraine, which is among the poorest Nations in Europe. Look how they are fighting for liberty. It brings tears to my eyes. Putin's plunder seeks to reconstitute the dictatorship, the vanquished Soviet dictatorship, that extended as far West as here. He wants those smaller countries. He wants them back. He longs for them, but they are not his. Putin now issues an ultimatum. He says there will be no peace deal unless Ukraine agrees to surrender territory that Russia ruthlessly and illegally seized and invaded, this little country, just as he did in Georgia. The United States, as leader of the free world, must never, ever genuflect to tyrants. Aggressor Putin wants the United States to walk away from the negotiating table. According to the terms the U.S. Vice President and Secretary of State laid out today, those terms include ceding Ukraine's territory to Russia. I say no. Nyet. Nemaye. No. The fact is Russia is losing the war it started without provocation. In 2014, she began during the Olympics, so no one would notice how she went in the back door. It is losing the war that Putin started. He escalated it in even bloodier fashion when he initiated a full-scale invasion in the year 2022. Sadly, every step of the way, the Trump administration has conceded to Putin's demands without Ukraine's consent. He cannot negotiate for Ukraine. It is not his. Russia does not recognize international agreements. It never has. For example, following World War II, Russia broke its border commitments made at the Yalta Conference with its conquest of Poland. That caused Poland to disappear as a free nation until the very brave ``solidarity,'' ``solidarnos'c''' demonstrators in Poland trip-wired the collapse of the Soviet Union beginning in 1989. Then in 1994, Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum to guarantee Ukrainian security. For that, Ukraine gave up all the nuclear weapons that were staged in Ukraine. In 2014, while the Olympics were ongoing in Sochi, Putin invaded Ukraine when people were distracted around the world and later turned that into a full-scale invasion in 2022. To his surprise, Ukraine has held them off. Recently, Putin even violated the cease-fire on targeting energy and civilian infrastructure just negotiated by the Trump administration a few weeks ago. Putin cannot keep a deal. This should make it crystal clear that dictator Vladimir Putin and his thug state cannot be trusted. Read history. Why would the U.S. President, Vice President, Secretary of State, or any world leader believe that communist dictator Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime will hold to any peace agreement? Russia never keeps its word. The only way to force Russia to abide by such an agreement is to include strong security guarantees for Ukraine. The world community must do that. A peace accord must ensure Russia will remain inside its own borders or face serious global sanctions, so severe they will cripple and collapse the Russian economy. Short of that, with the apparent abdication of the U.S. President, Vice President, and Secretary of State, Ukraine has everything to lose and Russia everything to gain. Who would want that outcome? What kind of mindset would want that? The White House isn't leading a legitimate peace process. It is enabling the globally aggressive reach of the most lethal dictatorship in Europe. The free world must not allow this. Putin will take everything he wants and more unless he is stopped. America must not appease dictators. We should support our fierce allies to fight dictatorship with every fiber in our being. Ukraine needs ammunition and arms. We must send them. They are not asking us to fight, but they are asking us to help arm them along with our European allies. Defending freedom's alliance is our highest calling here--to protect and defend the American people and our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley) and from the great city of Chicago, our capable co-chair of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, we want peace. Ukraine desperately wants peace but not as a result of what would be in effect a Putin-Russia victory. We want peace and not appeasement that would reward a brutal Russian invasion with land gains that officially recognize Crimea as Russia, with land gains that give de facto recognition to four other large areas. In time, then Putin would recognize his ability to come back and finish the job. We want peace but not without security assurances from the U.S. and its allies. We want peace but not without accountability. I stood on the grounds of Bucha and the mass grave. I have seen the flattened maternity hospital. I have learned of the tens of thousands of kids kidnapped by the Russians. These Ukrainian children were taken into Russia, never to see their families again. {time} 2045 We want peace but not with what would, in effect, be a message to autocrats and tyrants across the world that they have a green light to take lands [[Page H1679]] not their own. Recognizing that Putin's ambitions go well beyond Ukraine to Moldova, Georgia, the Baltics, and Poland, coupled with this administration's proclamation that, in effect, NATO is on its own. I paraphrase the concerns raised by Secretary Austin and General Milley that if we don't stop Putin's aggression now, then we will pay later with more blood and dollars. We must recognize at the same time that we simply can't trust Putin to keep a deal, which is why the security guarantees are so important. Indeed, our leadership here is a strategic and moral imperative, but this administration has never said who it wants to win this war. It has blamed Ukraine for starting the war. It has put absolutely no pressure on Putin to negotiate in good faith while it paused aid to Ukraine. The President has finally recognized what is obvious to the rest of the world: Putin is in no hurry to be engaged in peace talks. He knows he has a 4- or a 6-1 manpower advantage, and he treats his troops as cannon fodder. He knows that this administration will not provide another aid package. So, we have to ask ourselves: Why does this matter at this point? It is for the same reasons we fought the Second World War, to prevent a sovereign democratic nation from being wiped off