Ukraine is the Scrimmage Line for Liberty

Floor Speech

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Ms. DEAN of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Kaptur for all her extraordinary work for Ukraine many Congresses over and especially now since the brutal invasion.

Madam Speaker, it has been more than 650 days since Putin's illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine, the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II. Today, President Zelenskyy visits the United States, yet again, to call upon us to continue to lead.

The United States, President Biden, has led a coalition of more than 50 nations to provide Ukraine with the resources to protect its people, its land, its democracy, its sovereignty. The United States is leading, and we cannot abandon Ukraine now.

The war has taken more than 22,000 of Ukraine's men, women, and children in the brutal, harshest ways as the Speaker Emerita just detailed. We cannot abandon Ukraine now because Ukraine's fight is our fight.

We must pass the supplemental funding package currently sitting in the Senate. It is unconscionable of us to go home for the holidays without doing that. Without it, we impede Ukraine's ability to win. At the same time, I hope everyone understands that we weaken our own military readiness and our own national security because not only does this legislation include crucial funding for ammunition and intelligence for Ukraine, but it invests in our own military--$43.6 billion to increase our weapons capacity, including $24.5 billion to replenish U.S. weaponry supply.

We must not abandon Ukraine now because to do so would be a failure to protect a young democracy; to do so would be a threat to our own military readiness, to our own national security; and to do so would be a failure of the United States to lead, and that is simply unacceptable. It is un-American.

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