[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 160 (Saturday, September 30, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4897-S4898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
UKRAINE
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I am sorry that you are having to stay
here so late tonight, but I am glad you are in the chair.
I wanted to come down to the floor, now that the vote is done, just
to explain the objection that I made earlier today. I am not going to
do it at an elaborate length, but I think it is important to say that I
was deeply disappointed--as were many people--that the deal to keep the
government open did not actually have as part of it continuing funding
for Ukraine, which I think is critically important. I think most people
in the Senate believe it is critically important.
I objected to proceeding tonight because I thought it was important
for us to find a way to send a bipartisan message from this Chamber
that that is how we felt.
As I mentioned to the Presiding Officer earlier today, to my caucus
earlier today, one of the reasons--or maybe the reason--why this is
something that is so important to me is that my mom, who is still
alive, was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1938. She was a Polish Jew.
I couldn't imagine a worse place in the world to be born at that time
than where my mom was born. She and her parents and an aunt survived.
Everybody else was killed.
As everybody in this Chamber knows--certainly, the Presiding Officer
knows--16 million people were killed in Ukraine and in Poland by the
Nazis and by Stalin.
My mom cannot believe that she has lived long enough to see another
land war break out in Europe. That is what she says to me: I can't
believe I lived long enough to see this. I almost can't believe it
either because we had gotten used to reliance on our international
organizations, the rule of law, the idea that democracy had spread, the
idea that capitalism had spread.
There were some people, when the Berlin Wall fell down in the late
1980s, who were writing books about how this was kind of the end of
history because the liberal--small ``L'' liberal, not big ``L''
liberal--the small liberal order had prevailed. Of course, we know now
that wasn't true.
And we know now that there is a contest in the world of at least two
very different visions of how a human should organize themselves. We
believe in democracy. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in
freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Vladimir Putin believes in
none of those things. And Xi Jinping believes in none of those things
either.
It was an amazing experience for me to sit as a member of the
Intelligence Committee and watch Putin make one mistake after another
as he contemplated invading Ukraine--something a lot of people believed
he wouldn't actually do. I think a lot of Ukrainians thought that he
might. I think a lot of Pols thought he might. I think a lot of others
living in Eastern Europe were worried that he might actually do it.
I said that he made some fundamental mistakes, and he did make some
fundamental mistakes. One was he believed that his army was a lot
stronger than it has been. That doesn't mean they don't have serious
military capabilities. That doesn't mean that he wouldn't unleash a
battlefield of nuclear weapons at the drop of a hat or chemical weapons
at the drop of a hat if he felt like he was losing in a way that
threatened his regime or threatened him. I certainly am clear-eyed
about that. I know the Presiding Officer is and everybody else is.
But his army is a lot more hollowed out than he thought it was. That
is what happens when you are a totalitarian living on top of a
totalitarian society. No one actually tells you the truth. No one says:
Vladimir Putin, your army has been hollowed out. We have wasted all
that money that you asked us to spend on the army through corruption
and other kinds of things.
So that was one fundamental mistake. A second fundamental mistake was
his failure to understand what the Ukrainian people's reaction would
be. We didn't get it all right. Some of our intelligence wasn't right.
There were people who were saying that Putin was going to be in Kyiv in
72 hours. There was the feeling that Zelenskyy's government would
collapse and that the Russians would have a puppet government in Kyiv.
Instead, what has happened is the Ukrainian people have exhibited
more bravery than anybody could have ever asked for. It is astonishing
what they have done. And, to me, it is astonishing what they have
accomplished.
You hear people in the press these days talking about the stalemate
on the frontier or on the battle, on the frontline, as if that is
somehow a failure on the part of the Ukrainian people. I see that as
exactly the opposite. I see that as an unbelievable achievement by the
Ukrainian Armed Forces, by the Ukrainian people, by President
Zelenskyy, and by the American taxpayers who have supported this work.
That is the third thing Vladimir Putin didn't count on, was that
people all over the free world and democracies all over planet Earth
would be so inspired by the courage of the Ukrainian people, would be
so inspired by the bravery of the Ukrainian people that they would
demand of their elected officials that we do more, do more, do more.
That is what people have said in countries all over the world. That, he
didn't count on either.
That has been an amazing thing over the last 2 years, after we had a
President here who cast a lot of doubt on whether NATO was even
something important or whether the rule of law was something important
or whether the United States following through on our commitments was
even something important. And we have shown that none of that is true,
and NATO is stronger today than it has ever been. The transatlantic
alliance is stronger today than it has ever been.
We have allies from Europe to Asia who understand what the importance
of this fight is. They know that this is not just a fight for Ukraine.
They know the Ukrainians aren't just fighting for Ukraine--although,
that is an important fight; that is an important battle. They know this
is a fight for democracy. This is a fight for the free world.
There is no way that this fight would have been as successful as it
has been without U.S. assistance, without U.S. intelligence.
This is one where the good guys have come together in a way that is
really
[[Page S4898]]
meaningful and in a way that the tyrants in this world, I think, were
not expecting.
Our intelligence community certainly thinks that Xi Jinping is now
having to think twice and three times and four times about whether or
not he is going to invade Taiwan as a result of the success of the
Ukrainian people.
President Zelenskyy was here 2 weeks ago, and he told us that,
without our support, they would lose. I told my colleagues today that I
was standing there with--it was probably--I wasn't as close as you
were, Madam President, but I was close. I was just several desks away
from where he was standing. And I was thinking to myself--it was in the
old Senate Chamber where you didn't need a microphone in the old days
and humans were talking to humans. People showed up to have these
debates, to have these conversations. And here we were, 100 humans who
were in the Senate, who happen to be in the Senate today, and here is
this guy, President Zelenskyy, who, until 3 years ago or so--or 4 years
ago, maybe--was an actor in his home country in Ukraine and who ran for
office almost as a lark because there was so much corruption that he
felt like he had an obligation as a citizen to run, to run for
President, to try to overcome that corruption.
Then something happened that he probably didn't think was going to
happen, which is Putin invaded Ukraine, and the entire weight of the
world dropped on President Zelenskyy's head--just a human being, one
human being. Not the tallest guy I have ever seen, not the strongest
guy I have ever seen--a pretty regular person standing there in his
fatigues and the entire weight of the world is on his shoulders.
Our support of the Ukrainian people, because of what they have been
willing to do not just for Ukraine but for democracy, has made a huge
difference to them and to what President Zelenskyy is trying to
accomplish.
Tonight, I did object earlier because I was worried that--I thought
it was important for us to make sure we send a clear message that we
are not leaving Washington without figuring out how to fund Ukraine;
that we are going to spend the next 45 days or so making sure that the
United States continues to lead in this effort. No one else in this
world can lead here. That is a lesson I have learned from my mom. That
is a lesson I have learned from her experience in Warsaw and around
Warsaw. Nobody but the United States can lead. We are the only folks
who can lead.
President Zelenskyy said we are the only folks who can lead. And we
cannot allow our political differences here, our political disputes
here, to keep us from delivering the aid that Ukraine needs. We can't
do it. And I think there are probably some people who thought, when we
left today, that is what we were doing.
I thought it was important for the leadership of the Senate to put
out a statement tonight--Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell and
several others on each side of the aisle--underscoring that we are
going to spend the next 45 days working together to pass a robust
Ukraine aid package. And I think that is vitally important. And I hope,
in a small way, hopefully, we all had the chance today to think again
about how important this is, how important our leadership is, how
important our presence here as human beings is.
We are not going to get another chance at this, I suspect. I suspect
that we are going to have one chance, and that chance is going to be 45
days from now. And this Chamber, just like President Zelenskyy has
done, just like the Ukrainian people have done--he said, in fact: We
are giving our lives. All we are asking for is your money.
He is right about that. They are giving their lives. And I think that
if we had entered this war or watched this war happen, starting 2 years
ago, and we had not supported the Ukrainian people in the way that we
have, the world wouldn't have supported them, and they wouldn't have
made the extraordinary progress that they have made. And who knows how
this could end. We don't know.
It is important for us to stay in this fight and continue to lead. It
is important for us to learn the lessons of 16 million people who lost
their lives in Eastern Europe, in Poland, in Ukraine, believing that
they were dying invisible to the rest of the world. And we can't let
that happen again.
Madam President, I would ask unanimous consent that the statement
that Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell signed tonight be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Schumer, McConnell, Murray, Collins, Coons, Graham Joint Statement on
the Senate's Commitment to Supporting Ukraine
``We welcome today's agreement to avoid a harmful and
unnecessary shutdown of the federal government.
``Nevertheless, this agreement leaves a number of urgent
priorities outstanding. In the coming weeks, we expect the
Senate will work to ensure the U.S. government continues to
provide critical and sustained security and economic support
for Ukraine.
``We support Ukraine's efforts to defend its sovereignty
against Putin's brazen aggression, and we join a strong
bipartisan majority of our colleagues in this essential work.
With the eyes of our partners, allies, and adversaries upon
us, we keenly understand the importance of American
leadership and are committed to strengthening it from Europe
to the Indo-Pacific.''
Mr. BENNET. I thank the Presiding Officer for all of your relentless
support for the Ukrainian people and President Zelenskyy, and thank you
for being there tonight.
I yield the floor.
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