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Floor Speech
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, the weapons that we send to Ukraine aren't used in military parades. They don't sit in warehouses. They are used by the Ukrainians to fend off the brutal Russian invasion of that country. They are used by Ukraine to maintain that country's sovereignty and independence.
At the height of the summer offensive, Russia was firing 10,000 artillery rounds per day at Ukraine. In response, Ukraine was firing back 7,000 rounds per day. But by the end of last year, just a few weeks ago, Ukraine's stocks were so low that they were firing just 2,000 rounds per day. Russia is still firing 10,000 rounds per day.
I want my colleagues to step back for a moment and imagine you are in a duel with an opponent where, in each round, your opponent has five bullets for every one that you have. You are not going to survive that fight. That is not a fair fight. Soon, you won't even have one bullet. How long do you think that fight continues for you?
Right now, ammunition levels are so low that a Ukrainian artillery brigade that used to fire 50 to 90 shells per day is now forced to ration its supplies down to 10 to 20 shells per day. That is barely enough for them to just defend themselves, let alone push forward or reclaim any additional territory.
And it is not just ammunition that Ukraine desperately needs right now. It is supplies for their air defense system as well.
For 2 years now, Russia has not had air superiority, except once, in the city of Mariupol, and there Russian bombs flattened the city. In 2 months, 95 percent of the city was destroyed, and 25,000 people were killed. But, elsewhere in Ukraine, the casualties are much more limited because Russian planes were being shot down.
So, perhaps, it is no coincidence that, just a few days ago, Russia launched a major missile barrage at Kyiv in what was the single largest attack since the start of the war.
Why do I say that perhaps it wasn't a coincidence? Well, maybe it is because Russia is pushing all its chips in on a bet that Ukraine is not only going to run out of ammunition, but it is going to run out of air defense missiles.
And with no American funding to replenish those systems, Russia would then be able to destroy the missile defense batteries themselves, finally giving them a free hand to completely decimate every single Ukrainian city. They will apply the Mariupol tactics--the Mariupol playbook--to Odessa, to Kharkiv, and to Kyiv. And millions will die, and Kyiv will become a Russian city.
While this body hesitates to resupply Ukraine, Russia is putting one- third of its entire budget for 2024 toward its war effort. Russia is receiving new ballistic missiles, artillery rounds, military equipment, and attack drones from its allies--North Korea, China, and Iran. And yet we are still deciding whether we, as Ukraine's primary ally, are going to support them in the fight to come.
I just want to remind my colleagues what is at stake in this fight. We are making a decision, as we speak, right now, as to whether Ukraine is an independent, sovereign nation, or whether Ukraine, once again, is a Russian state, a Russian vassal, a Russian province; whether Kyiv is an independent city or whether Kyiv is a Russian city.
Never before in our lifetime has a large, nuclear-armed nation like Russia invaded a neighboring country with the sole purpose of destruction, annihilation, and annexation. If they succeed, if Kyiv does become a Russian city, the post-World War II order is over. It is over, and no one here is really prepared to deal and live with those consequences.
The rules that have governed the past 70 years and that have provided us with relative global stability, the rules that have protected our country and our economy, which relies on a stable global system--they will all be permanently broken. Consider the Pandora's box open.
I wish it were hyperbole to say that the fate of the free world is at stake, and I wish we weren't in a position where my Republican colleagues, who say that they support Ukraine, weren't making funding for Ukraine dependent on solving one of the most vexing, most difficult political issues in American politics: the issue of immigration and border policy. But that is where we are.
My Republican colleagues say they will let Vladimir Putin destroy and occupy Ukraine if we can't come to a conclusion on immigration policy and border policy. I wish we weren't here, but we are. And so Democrats are at the table trying to find a compromise that helps the Biden administration and future administrations better manage the situation at the border while also living up to our fundamental American values.
I wish we weren't here. I wish we could just all say that we believe it is in the interest of the United States of America to support Ukraine, to make sure that they have what they need to defend themselves, and we are going to get that job done. And we are going to sit down and try to work together on the crisis of a broken immigration system. Tying the two together in this way threatens to become the biggest gift America has ever given Vladimir Putin.
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