An Attack on Ukraine and Democracy Itself

Over the past month, we have all watched in horror as Russian President Vladimir Putin has waged an unprovoked, bloody war against the Ukrainian people. We’ve heard the blare of air raid sirens from Kyiv to Odesa, and watched the footage of missiles streaking indiscriminately through the skies. We’ve seen the heartbreaking images of millions of refugees fleeing their towns and villages, of apartments and hospitals smoking in rubble, of a father holding his deceased child’s hand under a sheet at a hospital. And of a Ukrainian man throwing himself in front of a Russian tank in a last, desperate attempt to protect his homeland.

This violence is brutal and senseless, and it’s clear that Putin has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. I fear the worst is still to come.

Ahead of the invasion, the Biden Administration and Congress took multiple actions to bolster the Ukrainian government and deter Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine, including the strategic decision from the Intelligence Community and President Biden to declassify key intelligence on Putin’s war plans. By disclosing Putin’s efforts to create false flag operations designed to blame Ukraine for the war, the Biden Administration stripped bare the naked form of Putin’s aggression. Likewise, in signaling that Putin is pushing out false propaganda about an alleged U.S. biological and chemical weapons program in Ukraine, we are putting the world on notice that Russia may be planning to attack Ukraine with such nefarious means.

Since the war began, the United States and our allies have been doing everything we can to halt Putin’s ambitions. Last week, Congress approved $13 billion in military, economic and humanitarian aid for the Ukrainian people. Our coordinated sanctions have also crippled the Russian economy and put the oligarchs in fear of losing their riches. And the international response appears to have emboldened many ordinary Russian citizens to speak out against the war as well, and they are staging brave protests in a country where such activities put you behind bars.

Congress and the Biden Administration have responded so strongly to Russia’s aggression because this attack – directed at Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, and the country’s sovereignty – is also an attack against the very idea of liberal democracy and self-determination.

Americans have seen the ugly face of authoritarianism in Putin’s Russia and recognize that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, his murderous ambitions in the future may take the Russian army into NATO countries. Thankfully, the Ukrainian people are putting up a stiff resistance and the United States and Europe are providing all the help we can without getting into a shooting war between the U.S. and Russia.

This war has imposed economic costs on the United States at home as well driving already sky-high gas prices even higher. But if we are to strip Russia of the resources it needs to wage war, and deter other nations like China from invading their neighbors, we must be willing to make our own sacrifices in the interests of freedom.

I salute the Ukrainian people in their brave defense of their country and will continue to do all I can in Congress to help the Ukrainians defeat Putin’s brutal war machine.