MARKING THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF UNPROVOKED RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

MARKING THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF UNPROVOKED RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2025)] [House] [Pages H777-H778] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] MARKING THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF UNPROVOKED RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggs of South Carolina). The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Vindman) for 5 minutes. Mr. VINDMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the House as we have just marked the third anniversary of the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. February 24, 2022, the date of the largest land grab in Europe since World War II, joins an ignominious list of others as a day of infamy, but this month, it is also notorious for something else. In this month and this year, the Pax Americana, the rules-based international order established in the aftermath of World War II, an order that has delivered peace and prosperity to the United States, has been brought to a dishonorable end. In this month, Trump ordered the U.S. Representative to the U.N. to vote with autocrats and against democracy. Pete Hegseth, the FOX weekend television host improbably elevated into an American Secretary of Defense, announced that NATO membership for Ukraine was off the table. Going further, he suggested that Ukraine's return to its 2014 borders was no longer in the cards. Hegseth thereby deprived Ukraine and the West of two of their most valuable bargaining chips in determining the shape of any peace agreement that is to come. In this same month, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, standing facts on their head, called Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the leader of Ukrainian democracy, an unelected ``dictator,'' and incredibly, spewing another blatant falsehood, blamed Ukraine for starting the war. In this month, in perhaps the most shameful statement from an American President in the history of our Republic, Trump explained that because Russia had lost so many soldiers, it was entitled to keep some or all of the territory that it had seized in its unprovoked war of aggression. It is bad enough that these are lies and betrayals of America's great traditions. It is bad enough that these statements legitimize violations of the fundamental principles of Pax Americana and the U.N. Charter. Namely, the rules of the jungle no longer apply to international relations-- that might does not make right and that powerful nations cannot employ force to redraw international borders at will. It is bad enough that the Trump administration is failing to offer a strong bargaining position for Ukraine from which to negotiate a just peace. It is bad enough that his statements have sent an unmistakable message to the world, in particular, Communist China, that aggression pays. Things are even worse than all of that. Under the tutelage of Donald Trump, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation of American foreign policy from a force for good in the world to a force for evil. Trump is aligning American foreign policy with that of the Kremlin. As analyst Phillips O'Brien has put it: ``The USA is now run by gangsters who both want to ally with other gangsters and are using threats of destruction and violence to get their way.'' {time} 1100 In the first term, there were guardrails because there were adults in the room. This time there are no such adults in the room. Trump has surrounded himself with sycophants, yes-men, third-rate fanatics, and clowns from the MAGA world. The guardrails are gone. Trump is free to follow his peculiar whims and unhinged instincts. Indeed, he is free to act as would a mad king. The results are plain to see. The results are visible in Trump's repeated attacks on Denmark for refusing to sell Greenland to the United States, another dangerous fantasy which is roiling relations with a NATO ally that has been an exceptionally loyal friend in times of need. They are visible in the trade war that Trump is promising to unleash on Mexico, Canada, Europe, and the entire world with untold consequences for prosperity everywhere, including here at home. They are most visible in the collapse of our friendship with Ukraine, our [[Page H778]] abandonment of a fledgling democracy that has been valiantly fighting for its very existence. Instead of standing by Ukraine, the Trump administration is insisting that it yield its natural resource wealth to the United States in exchange for previous American support without any guarantee of territorial integrity. This is not the behavior of a great democratic power, the leader of the free world. It is the behavior of a Mafia state engaged in coercion and blackmail. It is impossible not to be ashamed by what is being done in the name of America. Putin would like nothing more than to cause internal chaos in Ukraine and rid Kyiv of Zelenskyy. Trump is following suit. Zelenskyy is absolutely right when he stated that Trump is living inside a disinformation bubble. At the root, Trump's policies betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the American idea: the fact that we are a free and self-governing people, a democracy that has always been a beacon of liberty. The President and his billionaire, shadow co-president have embraced a dystopian ideology based on falsehoods. The effect of their disinformation is rapidly bringing us to a crisis point where their falsehoods will crash into the reality of a great power competition. If America abandons Ukraine and embraces the Kremlin, the consequences for the United States and for the world will prove ruinous. Already, everywhere Russia has advanced into Ukrainian territory, its forces have raped and pillaged and murdered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President. ____________________