U.S. and European Support for Allies Threatened by Russia

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, last week I returned from 3 days in Poland and Latvia. I participated in the global security forum in Wroclaw, Poland, where I met with key foreign leaders from Eastern Europe in particular. I also visited U.S. and allied forces participating in military exercises in Latvia.

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the West is confronted by an armed aggressor directly challenging the principle of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. European officials I spoke with see Russian President Vladimir Putin as opportunistic, determined to expand Russia's sphere of influence, and ready to exploit any vulnerabilities in nearby European countries.

Our friends on the frontlines in Central and Eastern Europe want more than words of solidarity from the European Union, NATO, and the United States; they want a more robust response and concrete actions to counter the Russian threat and deter further Russian aggression.

The crucible for this effort must come in Ukraine. With the Euromaidan Revolution of 2013 and the subsequent election of President Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian people have made it clear that their future is with the West, with democracy, with responsive and transparent governance. President Putin responded by invading eastern Ukraine, annexing Crimea, and destabilizing the entire Ukrainian State.

Ukraine today is a symbol of democratic Europe's resistance to Russian domination in the same way that Berlin was in 1948. The Ukrainian army has performed commendably under incredibly challenging circumstances, but it is no match for Russia's military.

However, as we witnessed throughout the Communist era in Eastern Europe, military power is not the only kind of power, nor does it necessarily always prevail. There is also the moral power of those who dare to resist, people like Andrei Sakhorov, Vaclav Havel, and Lech Walesa. As dissidents, they didn't command armies; instead, they commanded immense moral authority. They stood for freedom, and ultimately they triumphed.

Last Friday, at that forum in Wroclaw, I had the privilege of presenting Freedom Awards to Ukrainians who embodied their nation's courageous resistance and indomitable spirit. One of the awardees was Nadiya Savchenko. She has been well known in Ukraine for many years as one of the first women to serve as a pilot in the Ukrainian Air Force. In 2014, she joined a volunteer battalion to fight separatist forces in the country's east.

Nadiya Savchenko was not present to receive her Freedom Award because tragically, outrageously, this hero of the fight for Ukrainian independence is imprisoned in a Russian jail. At every turn, Nadiya Savchenko has been courageous and unbowed--the embodiment of Ukraine's defiance of Russian aggression.

Captured while fighting in the east, she was handcuffed to a metal pipe, surrounded by armed men, and interrogated. When asked who was fighting the pro-Russian separatists, she answered, ``All of Ukraine.''

Held as a prisoner in Russia, she went on an 83-day hunger strike. Appearing in a cage inside a courtroom, she refused to speak Russian, wore a T-shirt that displayed the Ukrainian trident, and held up a sign that read ``I was born Ukrainian, and I die Ukrainian.''

President Poroshenko awarded her the title ``Hero of Ukraine,'' and her fellow citizens elected her to Parliament. But, truly, she is a hero to all of us who seek to restore a Europe that is whole and free.

I presented the second Freedom Award to the Donetsk National University. Last year, pro-Russian separatists seized the city of Donetsk and declared a Soviet-style people's republic. Armed rebels took over the Donetsk's national university, the region's most prestigious college. They ousted the school's Ukrainian rector, ordered the Russification of the curriculum, and destroyed any semblance of academic freedom. Rather than submit, the rector and core faculty members left Donetsk and they transplanted the school roughly 500 miles to the west. Donetsk National University became Ukraine's first university in exile. It has been a struggle to survive, but this university has become a proud symbol of both academic freedom and Ukrainian independence.

The attack on Ukraine has not only galvanized Europe, it also focused the attention of Congress on European affairs like no other event perhaps since the end of the Cold War, certainly like no other event since I have been in the Senate.

On a bipartisan basis, Members of Congress admire and support Ukraine's stand for universal values and independence, and Congress has responded. In December, we passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act authorizing the President to provide defensive military assistance to Ukraine and to tighten economic sanctions against Russia.

Through the European Reassurance Initiative, the administration has pledged $1 billion to bolster U.S. military deployments, to increase our training exercises, and to step up our partnerships with allies, including the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, Moldavia, and Georgia as they strengthen their own defenses. I was pleased to learn last week that the administration is planning to preposition tanks and other heavy weaponry in the Baltic States and in Eastern Europe to support training with regional allies and to show resolve in the face of Russian threats.

These are all important steps forward, but they are not sufficient. Within the Transatlantic Alliance and NATO, the United States remains the indispensable Nation. If there is going to be a renaissance of the alliance in the face of the Russian threat, then the United States must lead it with our European allies.

The United States must mobilize the alliance, our European partners, and international financial institutions, such as the IMF, to provide generous economic support to Ukraine because no amount of security assistance can offset an economic collapse in Kyiv.

We also must recognize that the challenge for Mr. Putin is not only geopolitical; it is ideological. He has mobilized a vast propaganda campaign against what he calls ``decadent'' Western values and Western-style democracy. The United States, along with our allies, must go on the offensive to champion our values and our democracy. Just as we did during the Cold War, we must develop a 21st-century United States Information Agency and a Radio Free Europe-style campaign to counter Russia in the information space, including in the competition of ideas and values.

While American leadership is essential, our European allies must also step up. NATO leaders made important spending pledges at the Wales Summit last September. Now we all need to make good on those commitments, including increasing defense budgets to respond to Russian threats.

As we confront a newly aggressive Russia, we should also take heart from the Transatlantic Alliance's remarkable track record of achievement, thanks in large part to American leadership. Over the last seven decades, we have risen to every major challenge--rebuilding Europe after World War II; maintaining a united front during the Cold War; liberating the captive nations of Eastern Europe and integrating them into a Europe whole and free; and today, standing united against the challenges of terrorism, Russian aggression, and a nuclear Iran.

The Russian threat to Eastern and Central Europe is very real. President Putin is an autocrat whose popularity is based largely on his determination to reassert Russia's domination over its neighbors. But we have the means to counter this threat.

To support Ukraine and other frontline states, we need vigorous U.S. leadership of the Transatlantic Alliance, we need a robust mobilization of the alliance's military and financial resources, and we need to engage Vladimir Putin aggressively in the competition of ideas and ideals.

Our friends in Ukraine are already in this fight. Our allies elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe fear that they could be next. For the West to rise to this new challenge, the United States once again must be the indispensable Nation, and I know that here in the Senate we support that effort.

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