The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“UKRAINE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2288-H2294 on March 11, 2014.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
{time} 1930
UKRAINE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Daines). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, my remarks this evening will focus on the crisis facing Ukraine and our world, the most significant test of the will of liberty-loving people since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
The events halfway around the world remind us how precious our own liberties are and how important it is for the world community of liberty-loving nations, those that respect human life and those that believe in democratic advancement. We have common cause with those who stood in the streets in the subzero temperatures of Ukraine, whose futures are uncertain as I deliver my remarks this evening.
The world community of liberty-loving nations and those that respect treaty obligations and their roles as members of the United Nations Security Council cannot let the kind of illegal invasion of another country stand. Russia, one of the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations, has invaded a sovereign country, violating her territorial integrity and putting off the day that Ukraine can handle its own internal affairs in order to get rid of the corruption of the former regime and allow the voices of people who so very much want to live in a free society to fully develop.
Our Nation and the world have to stand up for freedom, democracy, and human rights in Ukraine. These precious values will be diminished everywhere if we fail to raise our voices in support of those whose lives are at risk. The West, involving our allies from around the world, has to exert strong diplomatic initiatives, economic reform, including a financing package that the International Monetary Fund and other nations are putting together, humanitarian relief, if requested, and military assistance to strengthen our NATO alliance and the protection of borders.
Recently, the Ambassador from Ukraine to the United States, Ambassador Motsyk, wrote a letter to Members of Congress, and tonight I am going to read it into the Record so every American can hear it:
Dear Members of the United States Congress:
I would like to begin by thanking the United States of America, and specifically the United States Congress, for the unwavering support of Ukraine at these challenging times.
For the past couple of months, Ukraine has been in the world's headlines. The whole world saw the determination of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who took to the streets to stand for a better life--for freedom, democracy, and the end of blatant corruption that stifled our country for far too long. Yet the Yanukovych regime tried to silence the protesters with guns. Peaceful and unarmed demonstrators were met by special forces with snipers who shot dead almost a hundred people and wounded hundreds more.
In an attempt to prevent further bloodshed and resolve the crisis, on February 21, 2014, leaders of the opposition Vitali Klychko, Oleh Tyahnybok, and Arsenii Yatsenyuk on one side, and the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych on the other, signed an agreement that had been negotiated with the help of foreign ministers of Poland, Germany, and France. Russia's Special Envoy, Vladimir Lukin, was present, but refused to sign it. Therefore, the suggestion by the Russian side that the opposition failed to implement the agreement is groundless.
The agreement called for an end of violence, restoration of the Ukrainian Constitution of 2004 and early presidential elections. However, on February 22, 2014, President Viktor Yanukovych fled the capitol and de facto removed himself from his constitutional authority. Therefore, on February 27, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was the only legitimate authority in Ukraine at that time, given the resignation of the government and the President's self-removal from exercising his functions, and restored the 2004 Constitution
(approved by 386 votes out of 450), recognized that Viktor Yanukovych removed himself from his constitutional duties through unconstitutional means by 386 votes, including 140 votes from the pro-Yanukovych Party of Regions, and set the early elections of the President of Ukraine on May 25, 2014
(328 votes).
That was 328, a vast majority of members of their Congress, of their Rada, voted for that.
According to Article 112 of the Constitution of Ukraine of 2004, in case of early termination of powers of the President of Ukraine, the functions of the President of Ukraine shall be carried out by the speaker of the Parliament until a new President is elected and inaugurated, the only legitimate supreme authority in Ukraine is the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
The Verkhovna Rada is their Congress.
The Rada elected its new speaker, Mr. Oleksandr Turchynov
(by 288 votes), who acts as the President of Ukraine until the elections, and appointed Mr. Yatsenyuk as the Prime Minister (by 371 votes). These actions were made in full compliance with Ukrainian laws.
That is over three-quarters of the membership. As the American people listen to what is happening there, you are watching a country trying to hold its government together. It was like at the beginning of our Republic when we weren't quite sure exactly how it was all going to be put together, but we were trying mightily to create a republic. However, even after the Ukrainian Congress did that, Russia did not recognize these changes and considers the former President, Viktor Yanukovych, its legitimate President, despite the votes of the Parliament, the highest standing body in the Nation of Ukraine.
Producing a piece of paper purporting to be Mr. Yanukovych's letter asking Mr. Putin to send Russian trips to Ukraine, the Federation Council of Russia, upon Mr. Putin's request, approved such a decision.
Some of us who are old enough to remember, remember what it was like living with the Soviet Union, a Soviet Union that invaded its neighbors, a Soviet Union that moved its tanks across Europe, a Soviet Union that killed over 14 million of its own people. There are some Americans old enough to remember that.
Now, the former President of Ukraine, Mr. Yanukovych, who stole from his own people--those are my words, not the Ambassador's--
Mr. Yanukovych is no longer the President of Ukraine, particularly after his escape from Kyiv on February 22, 2014. Therefore, none of his statements have any significance under either Ukrainian or international law. But in any way, even if the legitimate President of Ukraine called upon a foreign country to intervene with its armed forces in Ukraine, such a statement would also be worth nothing, because under the Constitution of Ukraine, Article 85, only the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, its Congress, can approve decisions on admitting units of armed forces of other states to the territory of Ukraine. The Rada clearly stated it had not made any such decisions.
Seeing that Ukraine is determined to pursue its European course, Russia, under the completely trumped up pretext, invaded Crimea with its armed forces.
People of Hungarian-American ancestry understand what it is like to be invaded. People of Polish-American heritage understand what it is like to be invaded. People of Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian heritage understand what it is like to be invaded by the Big Bear. There are plenty of American people who understand what the Ukrainian people are facing right now.
The Russian forces are seeking to establish complete control over Ukraine's military facilities in Crimea, trying to block and disarm Ukrainian military garrisons and border guard bases, blocking airports and ships. The Russian troops and armored vehicles are moving uncontrollably around Crimea, one of Ukraine's states, and numerous Russian military planes and helicopters violated Ukrainian airspace.
Russia's power far outweighs Ukraine, which is nearly defenseless facing this massive force, and yet, Ukrainian soldiers have hunkered down in army bases, in air control stations, trying to stand up as they are surrounded; what courage. What courage.
By countless provocations, Russian military is seeking to instigate an armed conflict and replicate in Ukraine the Abkhazia and South Ossetia scenario. However, Ukrainian servicemen act with utmost restraint and don't react to such provocations, but there's a threat that Russia may engineer provocations against its own troops, and blame them on Ukraine.
Don't forget, Russia's President was head of the KGB, their secret police. He knows these techniques well.
There is also an ongoing accumulation of Russian equipment on the Russian territory in close proximity to the border of Ukraine in the Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk and Chernihiv oblasts.
What does that mean?
These actions may indicate preparedness of the Russian side for possible intervention into the Ukrainian territory across the land border.
The military intervention is accompanied by a huge outburst of fabrications. I can assure you that Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine enjoy the same rights and freedoms as other citizens of my country. Nobody has ever forbidden, forbids, or will forbid the use of the Russian language, as the Russian propaganda tries to demonstrate.
In fact, if you go to Ukraine, people speak many languages. They speak Ukrainian, they speak Russian, some speak a combination. Some speak Polish as well. Some speak German. There are many languages spoken in the nation of Ukraine.
As of today, there is no proof of any violations of Russian minority rights in Ukraine; there were no appeals to the relevant Ukrainian authorities, neither from those allegedly affected nor from Russia's officials. In accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Parliamentary Commissioner on Human Rights of Ukraine and the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation in case of such appeals to the Russian side, they are transferred to the Ukrainian Ombudsman.
The actions by the Russian Federation constitute an act of aggression against the state of Ukraine. Russian Federation brutally violated the basic principles of Charter of the United Nations obliging all member states to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
What has happened is serious.
Ukraine in the strongest possible terms protested such actions, but Russia officially rejected Ukrainian proposals to hold immediate bilateral consultation (under article 7 of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation of 1997).
Again, another treaty violation.
Russia's actions pose a serious threat not only to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, but also to the peace and stability in the whole region. Moreover, Russian's action provoke a disbalance in the international security system, and can lead to violations of the regime of international nuclear nonproliferation on a global scale.
When in 1994, Ukraine became a party to the Nonproliferation Treaty and voluntarily surrendered the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, it did so exclusively under certain conditions. These conditions envisaged granting security assurances to Ukraine by the five nuclear states. On December 5, 1994, the United States, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances to Ukraine. The French Republic and the People's Republic of China support the memorandum by signing separate declarations.
Ukraine has thoroughly implemented its commitments under the Nonproliferation Treaty and has taken and fulfilled additional obligations by getting rid of all of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium.
{time} 1945
Today, we witness the situation when the Russian Federation attempts to undermine the NPT regime not only by violating the Budapest Memorandum, but also by violating the Nonproliferation Treaty, which clearly states in its preamble that ``States must refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner.''
Nonadherence by one guarantor state--the Russian Federation--to its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum by the military invasion in Ukraine creates a situation when the threshold states may consider international legal instruments insufficient to ensure security, territorial integrity and inviolability of their borders.
We rely on the commitments contained in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and the Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between NATO in Ukraine, as well as the U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership and other bilateral documents.
Ukraine is asking the world community to pay attention.
We need help from the guarantor states, the United Nations, NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe--
Who, by the way, have been denied access on repeated attempts to enter Crimea unarmed to observe, Russia has denied them entry.
--the European Union, all civilized nations to protect our sovereignty and territorial integrity by all available means and to prevent a war which would shatter peace in Europe and will have grave and irrevocable consequences for peace and security on a global scale.
Ambassador Motsyk goes on:
The aggression must be stopped, and we rely on the strong and unified position of the global community.
Military units deployed from Russia must leave the territory of Ukraine immediately, and those belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet must return to their barracks. Armed gangs that came from Russia must also immediately leave Ukraine.
Crimea is an inalienable part of Ukraine, with citizens of all ethnic backgrounds.
All issues should be resolved through negotiations. There is no alternative to a peaceful and diplomatic solution of the crisis. We hope that wisdom will prevail.
We need America's help, and we count on it.
Sincerely yours,
Olexandr Motsyk
Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States
I also want to say that there has been some conjecture in the news that we have heard the President of Russia say that Crimea really doesn't belong in Ukraine because, back in the 1950s, when there was a Russian leader by the name of Nikita Khrushchev, that he got drunk one night and he kind of consigned Crimea to Ukraine by accident--by accident--because he wasn't thinking.
There are also very interesting facts contained in a book published in Moscow in 2003 entitled ``Ukraine is not Russia.'' Do you know who it was written by? It was written by the former President of Ukraine, President Leonid Kuchma.
In chapter 14 of that book, President Kuchma devoted 13 pages to trace the history of Crimea and Ukraine. He called it the ``Crimean knot.''
The former President said--when he discusses the politics around the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, he says the then-transition to Ukrainian administration after Ukraine became independent and how he dealt with separatist forces during his tenure as President.
Kuchma maintains that the transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine came in response to petitions from the Crimeans themselves, who felt Moscow was too far away and insufficiently responsive to their everyday concerns, where their own country, their own capital of Kiev, was likely to be more attentive, particularly on issues of water and other utilities; so they could provide for Crimea better than Moscow, located far, far away.
Crimea then, Kuchma writes, was a desert and frontier land. He is referring back to the post-World War II period, particularly after the devastation of World War II.
That area was just violated and leveled to such an extent. It is hard for people in the West who have never experienced that to fully accommodate what happened there.
The residents believe Ukraine would be a better fit administratively, so he says--President Kuchma who had headed that country--the story of a drunken Nikita Khrushchev ceding Crimea to Ukraine as a gift is a fairytale. Those are his own words.
In 1954, right after Stalin's death--and what a butcher he was--
Khrushchev hardly had the unbridled authority to make such unilateral decisions. At the time, he was vying for power inside his own country.
The actual act of transferring Crimea to Ukraine was signed by the head of what was called the Presidium, Kliment Voroshilov, not Khrushchev.
So the President of Russia maybe didn't read history, I don't know; but the point was the transfer to Ukraine came in 1954. It was a consequential date, and it has remained in Ukraine as part of that region for the entire second half of the 20th century and the first decade of this century. I thought it was important to put that on the Record.
I also wanted to say, as a Member of Congress, I am so very, very proud of the work that has been done by the Verkhovna Rada, the legal authority in Ukraine that is holding that Nation together. They are our counterpart. They are a legislative branch of their government, just as we are here.
We for many years now, since 1999, have had a parliamentary exchange with Ukraine, founded and signed by all of our Members, with the former speaker of their Parliament, Mr. Oleksandr Tkachenko, and our Speaker here for many congresses back, Speaker Dennis Hastert. That agreement lives today.
Over the last decade and a half, we have had many parliamentary exchanges. We have had teleconferences. We have had journeys by Ukrainian parliamentarians here and American Members of Congress there.
We believe that the collective intelligence of Ukraine is contained in that Rada. We are very proud of the work they are doing, and we want to continue working with them.
Our agreement says that we want to build upon the strategic partnership between the United States and Ukraine, first established in 1996, and that our parliamentary exchange would serve as a conduit in further developing and continuing economic and political cooperation between our two countries.
The types of discussions that we have held--and will continue to do in the future--will encompass economic relations, trade, space exploration, health care, the environment, agriculture, natural resources, and any other matter important to the promotion of close ties between the United States and Ukraine.
This is a moment for more robust engagement with the Parliament of Ukraine and our own Congress. The idea is that we can learn from one another, we can be mutually supportive, and we know how important legislative bodies are to nations that actually expand freedoms, rights of free speech, rights of assembly, rights of free press, rights of free expression of religion, and we are very proud to be partnered with the Verkhovna Rada.
I would also like to read this evening from an excellent article that was written for The New Republic by Yale scholar Dr. Timothy Snyder, the author of a recent bestseller called ``Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin,'' during World War II. It is incredible work.
But in this particular article, he talks about where Putin is vulnerable, where his soft spots are. He states at the beginning of the article:
In dispatching troops to Ukraine, Russia has violated international law, flouted multiple treaty commitments, and set the stage for a European war.
It is right that the American people are paying attention; it is right that we are using our power to try to put the bear back where it belongs and to try to move the situation to stability. The price of poor diplomacy, I think, would be catastrophic.
In this article, Dr. Snyder ends by saying:
Russian propaganda derides Europeans as fey and helpless, and we too often tend to agree. But the European Union does have instruments of influence. Its greatest power, of course, is its attractiveness to societies on its borders, such as Ukraine. But even where membership is not an option, and the European Union faces unambiguous hostility, it can act. Russia's very contempt for the European Union might force Europeans to undertake a more active foreign policy and to take responsibility for their neighborhood.
The United States has to use our power to help push the situation in that direction.
I just wanted to ask if our dear colleague from Iowa, does he have his own Special Order, or does he wish to join in this Special Order? Congressman King of Iowa.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I very much appreciate the gentlelady for yielding to me. I have a few topics I intend to bring up in the subsequent hour.
I want to thank the gentlelady for raising this topic and for the significant information that has been delivered here with regard to Ukraine, the Russians, and the political scenario that we are in.
I am contemplating what this means to the world. I will say, Mr. Speaker, that I am more troubled than many about the circumstances that have unfolded off of the Black Sea.
I have watched as Putin set up the Olympics. It looked like part of it was for self-glorification. When I think about what this means politically, much of the world is looking at Putin, thinking, well, look at all of the $50-plus billion you invested in the Olympics, and now, you see the world opinion now has turned against you when you had all of that good will that was garnered at the Sochi Olympics.
I think it is a little bit different perspective from where I sit, that is that the component of this is true, but I don't think Putin cares about world opinion. I think he cares about how much hegemony he can deliver from the seat that he has. I think that the good will that came among the Russian people, his popularity numbers had to go up.
Remember, this is a man who went through a difficult contentious election in 2012. There were demonstrations in the streets in multiple places around Russia. The tension that was there, as any leader, his hold on power can't just be by force and fear alone, there has to be some support that is there.
I believe that the Olympics actually helped Putin and gave him the support base at home that would allow him to pull off an invasion--an illegal invasion of the Crimea.
I don't think he cares about what we think. I don't think he cares what the President thinks, Mr. Speaker. I don't think he cares so much even what the European Union thinks, as long as they continue to buy gas from him and keep his economy going, but I think that was a component.
The next thing is that I have watched him for a good number of years, and perhaps not with the attention to detail the gentlelady from Ohio has delivered here tonight, but I have long concluded that Vladimir Putin is committed to restoring, to the extent that he can in his time, the old Soviet Union.
I think he sees this as a giant geopolitical chess game. I would think back at the time in 1984 when then Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick stepped down as ambassador to move on with her career.
I remember picking up on page 3 or 4 of the newspaper a little tiny article there that mentioned it. It wasn't any examination, but it said a little quote that I think she was very well known for, Jeane Kirkpatrick.
{time} 2000
We were in the depths of the cold war at the time, I would add, and she said: What is going on in this cold war between the United States of America and the Soviet Union is the equivalent of playing chess and Monopoly on the same board. The question is: Will the United States of America break the Soviet Union economically in the Monopoly component of the game before the Soviet Union checkmates the United States militarily?
That was the contest. That was a contest as Reagan and Thatcher saw it. That was the contest as far as Pope John Paul II saw it, I believe. We know how that turned out at least in the temporary. The strength of the economy of the United States and our ability to continue to develop more and more technology--to put SDI up in order to restore our national defenses--became the deciding factor. The Soviet Union could no longer keep up with the United States, and the Soviet Union couldn't keep up with the free world. The juggernaut of our economy overwhelmed the managed economy of the Soviets. Of course, Gorbachev was a player in this, and we had glasnost and perestroika. So I think he saw that he couldn't hold it together anymore, and to the extent that he cooperated with Lady Thatcher and President Reagan, we saw the worm turn of history.
I hold in my office a piece of the Berlin Wall. That is framed in my office, and I have had it since 1989. Excuse me. Actually, it was on September 12 of 1990 that that piece was chiseled out of the wall for me. I didn't get to do that myself. That piece of the Berlin Wall represents a piece of the Iron Curtain, itself. The Berlin Wall was the physical structure of the Iron Curtain that Winston Churchill described at Fulton, Missouri, in 1948. The Iron Curtain was drawn by, I believe, the finger of Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin, whom the gentlelady has mentioned, at Yalta, on February 11, 1945, when we didn't know how World War II was going to turn out.
The Allies got together when we were allied with the Russians, and they drew a line across the map. On the east side of that line, they were going to live under the Soviet Union, under the iron fist of communism. On the west side of that line, people were going to live and be free, and the destinies of hundreds of millions of people were determined at Yalta. It is curious to me that Putin has invaded and occupied Crimea, which includes Yalta.
One day, I hope to stand on that real estate and look out across the bay where that decision was made. It was a momentous time in history, and it began the domino effect of the military invasion and occupation of free country after free country. It spilled over to the east--into Korea, Southeast Asia. I have long believed that, had we held a different position--a stronger negotiating position--and if we had insisted with Stalin that we were not going to hand the Eastern Bloc countries over to him, we might have ended up with the map that we see today rather than the map that was so hard fought through the cold war. Think how different it is.
Now I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that when people think about this--and the gentlelady from Ohio and I discussed this in some of the very engaging conversations we have had--think about how the Iron Curtain was constructed, defined at Yalta on February 11 and 12 of 1945, and how that line moved when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989 as each of the Eastern Bloc countries stepped up and grasped their freedom. I think of the people by the tens of thousands standing in the square in Prague, rattling their keys in the square at Prague. Over time, they rattled their keys into, essentially, a bloodless revolution that brought about the freedom of the Czechs for the first time in decades. That kind of desire--that heart for freedom--washed across Eastern Europe. It actually washed across Russia for a time. There was a time that I said that freedom echoed all across Europe and all the way to the Pacific Ocean. I believed that for a while, Mr. Speaker.
Of course, we don't believe this today because the Russia that is ruled under Putin isn't the Russia that the Russian people believed they were going to get when the Soviet Union melted down and imploded, and that became what we thought for a time--hoped for a time--was the end of the cold war. Now I fear that it has relaunched and restarted. Yet we should look at this map of where the new Iron Curtain is. It is at the border of Russia. It doesn't go west of the border of Russia, and it should not be allowed to creep west of the border of Russia.
That is what I believe the gentlelady and I are committed to working towards--to restoring the strength and the prosperity of the people who live free and who give the inspiration to those who do not to live as we do, as a free people.
I very much appreciate the gentlelady.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman King for being here this evening, also for attending the briefing this afternoon and for participating fully in that effort.
As you were speaking, I have a piece of the Berlin Wall in my office. I knocked it off with a hammer in 1989, and I have it framed, and it will be there for the people of my region forever. It is all framed, and it is labeled in memory of that incredible moment.
What we learned during that period of time, post World War II, was that we have to maintain our resolve. I say this to the people of Ukraine that we will not forget you, and if liberty-loving nations use their collective power, change is possible, that change for the better is possible. So, for those who have fear and trepidation, know that there have been models of states before.
Take Hungary, which was invaded in 1956. I can remember Cardinal Mindszenty, from my own denomination, being locked up. When the Russian tanks came into Budapest, Cardinal Mindszenty became a symbol of freedom for the whole world. He was held in the U.S. Embassy. They gave him a closet there, and I actually saw it when I was traveling in Budapest. He became a symbol in the West for defiance against the regime, and our government played a role in that. Cardinal Mindszenty was not an American. He was a Hungarian. He was a Roman Catholic prelate. He risked his life, and he never came out of that Embassy. He became a symbol.
If we look at what happened in the fifties and the sixties in Poland, as labor union members began to demonstrate and be killed, Father Jerzy Popieluszko lost his life in standing up for their right to have a better way of life, and, ultimately, Pope John Paul II became a Pope from inside the Iron Curtain. We saw how religious leaders struggled with the people to give them full voice. It is just so historically compelling and from another realm, from an advanced realm of where the human soul seeks to bring a better way of life to people who seem to be fighting against the odds. They don't have a lot of guns and weapons and nuclear weapons and battleships at their behest, but there is a spirit that attends to those who want to build a better way of life. In standing with the people and in thinking with the people of Ukraine, we hope we embody that spirit.
We were graced with the presence at the National Prayer Breakfast recently with the head of the Orthodox Christian congregations of Ukraine's Patriarch Filaret. We also had other leaders from the Greek Catholic, the Baptist, the Jewish denominations in Ukraine. I have this hope that as the Easter and Passover season approaches that the religious leaders will find a way to invite the world community that wants so very much for the people of Ukraine to be free, that we will find a way to pray for their future together. We hope the religious leaders of Ukraine invite us. I would love to be in that procession. What a place for the world community to be in this Easter-Passover season.
There were Muslims and imams who stood in the square in Kiev; there were Orthodox; there were Baptists; there were Catholics; there were Christian leaders; there were union leaders. What courage. They had no weapons. The weapons were all around them, but they stood their ground. The power of that message is not lost on the people of Ukraine. It is not lost on her neighbors. Frankly, it is not lost on Russia. It is a great power to stand with the spirit of those who want to be free and to find a way to do that, to find a peaceful way to do that.
The Russian Government has never known freedom. They have never had a free election. They have no concept of how to run a free society. I first traveled into that region in 1973, trying to find the shattered remnants of our family, and the further I got--the further we drove--we ended up, I remember, going through then-Czechoslovakia as we entered. We were the only civilian car on the road. Every single vehicle on the road was either a little, white delivery truck or a military truck. I can remember our beloved mother, Anastasia, and I were sitting there in the car, and I was driving.
The further we got as we headed toward Prague, the military soldiers would lift the tarp up on the back of the trucks and look at us--these two women, driving in this orange car with a Western license plate. We must have been a real curiosity, and completely unarmed as they checked you before you went over the border. I remember going over that border--and the gun turrets and the barbed wire--as we proceeded east and how our luggage and our car was examined at every border. The further we got, the more lonely it became until we were the only vehicle on the road as we entered Ukraine for the first time, crossing the border at a place called Uzhhorod, and the Soviets making us wait 5 hours at the border so they could take our car apart. It was just a little car. We had just two suitcases. They couldn't believe we were Americans. They thought we would have brought seven trunks. They looked under the car. They held us at the border until it was night. There were no streetlights, and there were no traffic signs.
We had to find our way from Poland to Lviv, the major city on the western side of Ukraine. In riding over the roads, which had huge rocks, I thought, boy, we are going to get a flat. There were no gas stations. I mean, there was nothing. There was no electricity. We just drove into the wilderness in trying to find that town. When we finally got there, which was very late at night, I saw this little sign called
``In-Tourist.'' That was where they allowed guests or foreigners to stay.
I said to Mom: This must be the place.
It was dusty. There was nobody. There was nobody on the streets, and there were no vehicles. There was just this tiny, little sign in the window.
I went in. There was one desk clerk and one gentleman who was dressed in an elevator operator outfit. He didn't speak any English, and I didn't speak his language. He signaled to me that he wanted me to take the car. He was in the car, and we drove it to the Lviv Opera House, which was in complete disarray. I mean it wasn't fixed up like it is today. The car was then seized. It was put behind those closed gates, and I never saw it again until we left the country. So we had to go everywhere on foot, and we were watched everywhere. We were trying to find the pieces of our family. Our grandparents had come to America 100 years before.
I remember how grim it was. I remember people didn't laugh a lot. They didn't have a lot to eat. We tried to find our relatives. We had, through relatives in Poland, tried to notify the village from which our grandparents came. We stayed in the hotel for 3 days, and we thought, well, nobody is coming. Then our mother, who spoke Polish and who could understand Ukrainian and Russian, heard our name on the third day. Here people had been trying to find us for 3 days. We were the only people in the hotel, and they were told that we weren't there. I can remember how awful that was. Of course, the room we stayed in was up on the second floor of a building now that they call the St. George Hotel, but then it was just the In-Tourist Hotel. They stationed a very large woman outside our hotel door there, with a table and a water bottle, and she knew whether we were coming or going or who came in, and there was a listening device in the wall. There were no curtains on the windows, and there was no hot water. I just remember how sparse it was.
{time} 2015
I am probably in Congress today because of what I experienced back then and the understanding I came to have of what life was like there and how difficult it was. I can't go into it all this evening, but I learned about the suffering of the people firsthand.
I think one of the shocking experiences I had was how poorly the Soviet government treated its veterans. They asked me for wheelchairs, they asked me for crutches. I couldn't believe how little respect they had for their own people.
So when I see Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine and invade Crimea, he has no respect for the people there.
We got into the villages. You could only go to certain approved villages in those days. I found that in the village of our grandparents they had to build an outhouse for us to visit, with this little tiny set of stones going back to the outhouse. Americans say, What? I said, Yes. Their life was so basic.
I thought I would never eat a potato again in my life because all we ate was potatoes with lard on top for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and tomatoes that had been canned. They gave us the best they had.
I thought, So this is communism.
The life of the ordinary person is so pitiful. They had no fresh water. I got deathly ill. There were no doctors. You couldn't get medicine. I learned what dysentery was. I learned what unsafe food was. I learned how the relatives, including one of my great uncles, had been tortured and sent to work camps. They called them gulags. His brother died there. I began to understand the full price that families pay who live under those kinds of systems.
So President Putin has no clue to what a free society really means. So much unneeded suffering.
We have this moment in history to make a difference. I know the American people are considering how to make that difference. Freedom-
loving people around the world are as well.
I find the judicious and firm acts of President Obama and Secretary Kerry to be very constructive. America can't be the babysitter for the world. On the other hand, there is a conscience that rises in freedom-
lovers, and, thinking together, America will make the right decisions, with her allies around the world, to right this situation and to allow those who want their liberty, after paying such an egregious price, to have that moment in their own history.
I see our dear colleague from New York, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who is appropriately attired this evening in full Ukrainian spirit, has joined us.
Welcome.
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Thank you so much, Congresswoman Kaptur, for your leadership and for organizing a briefing earlier today for Members of Congress with head leaders from the State Department on the actions that are happening, and for your leadership in passing H. Res. 499 today, which condemned the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity by military forces of the Russian Federation. We appreciate very much your making that happen and helping us to pass that resolution.
Once again, the Russians have rattled their sabers and tightened their grip on the Ukraine. In the past 24 hours they have seized a Ukrainian naval base. Even though the Constitution declares Crimea to be an integral part of Ukraine, the pro-Russian regional authorities in Crimea continue to sever links to Ukraine's capital today, canceling incoming flights from Kiev. They have also run out of town any of the monitors that have come from the United Nations or the independent free world. Flights to and from Turkey also have been suspended.
The Russians have threatened to confiscate Western assets and refuse to even speak to the Ukraine's interim prime minister on the phone. The interim prime minister has found $80 billion missing--even loan guarantee money. This Congress needs to work together to find that money and return it rightfully to the Ukrainian people.
Yanukovych, the disgraced former President, did the Russians' bidding and appealed to Ukrainian military units to refuse to follow the orders of the new interim authorities.
Once again, today, the Russians ignored international norms, calls for restraint, and all the cries for justice for all those who were gunned down in Independence Square.
Congresswoman, are you aware that there has been no action to punish the people who killed community leaders and others in Independence Square? Eighty-two people were murdered.
My constituents have held vigils. They have memorials that they have constructed. In their churches they have pictures of every single martyred hero and heroine, with their stories. Yet no one has been held accountable for that crime against decency and humanity of killing innocent people.
They have ignored Ukrainian sovereignty, treaties, and the rule of law, all in an effort to reestablish a disgraced petty tyrant whose secret life of obscene opulence included--this is hard to say--gold-
plated toilets--that is what they are saying on the Internet--along with pictures of all of his zoos and his house and all kinds of things where he wasted the money of the Ukrainian people on wasteful things.
On the other hand, the Ukrainians have already done the right thing for the world around them. In 1994, they signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances and willingly gave up the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. They are a peace-loving people. With the peaceful stroke of a pen this eliminated a far greater threat to world peace than North Korea and Iran combined.
The key thing the Ukrainians were promised in return was security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. The U.S. and Russia, Congresswoman, were signatories to that statement.
President Obama has made it clear that America will stand with the Ukrainian people. We are all watching everyday on television what is happening, and what has struck me the most was the scene where the Russians were shooting in the air and shouting at the Ukrainians, and they marched peacefully towards them. One general called out: America stands with us.
That is true. America stands with peace-loving people around the world and for democracy. We so often take for granted the freedoms, the liberties, the democracy that we have that others are struggling for around the world.
Tomorrow, the Ukraine's interim prime minister is scheduled to meet President Obama at the White House here in our country. The White House has announced visa restrictions on Russians and Crimeans who are threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The President is working with America's allies to craft economic sanctions that will punish and isolate the architects of this aggression.
Secretary of State John Kerry has traveled to Kiev to mourn for the fallen in Independence Square and to bring $1 billion in American loan guarantees and pledges of technical assistance. We overwhelmingly passed the $1 billion loan guarantee without a cap here in our Congress. It was an important vote. We all stood with the Ukrainians.
Now it is time for Congress to make it clear that we stand with the Ukrainian people. The resolution we passed today is a good start--
condemning the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity by military forces of the Russian Federation.
To paraphrase the Ukrainian anthem: Their persistence and toils should be rewarded. Let freedom's song resound.
We should be asking our friends in Russia, What is their word worth? What is their signature worth on any document, on any treaty, or on any contract? What is their word worth?
I would like to invite the distinguished Congresswoman to join me this Saturday with the Ukrainian community on Roosevelt Island, named after FDR, who went to Crimea for Yalta and spoke of the four freedoms: freedom of want, freedom of religion, freedom of democracy, freedom of speech. These freedoms are what the people in the Ukraine are fighting for, longing for, working for.
We are going to gather at the Four Freedoms Park in Manhattan to pray with, to be with, and to stand with the Ukrainian people who are bravely fighting as we speak for their freedoms, for their independence, for American values that they want as their values. America stands with them. The American people are standing with the Ukrainians.
I thank the gentlelady for having found the Ukrainian Caucus here in Congress, of which I am a member, and also for having crafted resolutions and so many statements in their support and helping to organize in a bipartisan way. Because this country is united. We are speaking with one voice, Republicans and Democrats, in support of the Ukrainian people.
I thank the gentlelady for her magnificent leadership.
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York for taking time out of a very busy day to work way over time tonight and to be here and to join our plea for the people of Ukraine. Thank you for your leadership in the Ukrainian Caucus, and thank you for wearing a peasant blouse, which has a long, deep history in Ukraine.
Ukraine breadbasket to Europe breadbasket to the world--now the third largest exporter of grain, despite all of the hardship that the corrupt government of that country has placed on their farmers, who simply want to earn a living from the soil and share their great gifts with the world. They have faced so many roadblocks.
Thank you for appreciating the artistry and magnificent beauty of that country and for your steadfast support of liberty both here and abroad. You have just been a magnificent member. We thank you so much for coming down here this evening.
As she was speaking about New Yorkers who are going to gather in Four Freedoms Park in New York City, a home to people from throughout the world, I wanted to say that there are more Ukrainians living outside Ukraine than inside its borders because of the tragedies that have occurred there over the last century and more, particularly because of the Stalin and Soviet period.
Ukrainians live in Canada, Portugal, Italy, Argentina, and Australia. The pieces of humanity are strewn across the globe, and as I mentioned in earlier remarks this evening, millions of her own people were either starved to death or murdered. They were killed by their own government, the government of the Soviet Union, which tried to eliminate Ukrainian culture, Polish culture, the Jewish religion.
Now we are worried about the Tatars in Crimea because they don't share the majority religion. They are a minority. The history of tyrannical leaders in that part of the world has, unfortunately, been to kill those who don't agree with them rather than to create a civil society in which all views can be expressed, even though we might not agree with them.
So we worry about the people there. We are trying to be a voice for them here in our own country--a voice for freedom, not for brutality or repression. A voice for encouragement, not force alone.
I want to thank Congresswoman Maloney and Congressman King for joining us this evening.
May God bless America, and may God bless the people and the legitimate government of Ukraine as she seeks to build a freedom of liberty and justice for all her people.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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