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Floor Speech
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Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this morning to express concern for the people of Ukraine and the hundreds of millions who are going to bed hungry across the globe.
Every day since that terrible day, February 24, we have watched in horror as Vladimir Putin and his army, his forces, killed innocent Ukrainians, over and over and over again like nothing--nothing--we have seen since World War II.
Russian forces continue to besiege and shell Ukrainian cities like Mariupol, where over the last two months, civilians have lived in bunkers under perpetual fire. These are civilians in those bunkers.
Only yesterday, 130 civilians managed to escape the battered Azovstal steel plant. Describing the last several months, one evacuee said:
You can't imagine how scary it is when you sit in the shelter, in a wet and damp basement which is bouncing, shaking. We were praying to God that missiles fly over our shelter, because if it hit the shelter, all of us would be done.
Sadly, 200 more Ukrainian civilians have been unable to evacuate, even as Russian forces began storming the steel mill just yesterday. So our prayers are with them and the remaining brave Ukrainian fighters continuing to hold on to this plant.
But atrocities continue across all of Ukraine. In Donetsk yesterday, three civilians were killed on their way to collecting water-- collecting water--for their families.
The United States, of course, must continue to help Ukraine fight against Mr. Putin and his forces. Mr. Putin is the incarnation of evil. It is as clear as any debate could be.
The good news is, countries all over the world are unified against him. But we have a long way to go. Now, I and so many others across the House and the Senate strongly supported the appropriation that Congress made back in March--$13.6 billion in emergency appropriations to support Ukraine, and I stand by President Biden's recent $33 billion request to help Ukraine defend itself over the long term.
Unfortunately, in that first number, the $13.6 billion, the good news is we had support for that in both parties. But I have to say for the record: Not enough support on the Republican side. Here in the Senate, 31 Republicans voted against the $13.6 billion. And when you add up the Senate Republicans voting against the $13.6 billion in the spending bill and add them to the House Republicans, which is, obviously, a much bigger number, it is more than 200 Members of the Republican Party in the U.S. Congress voted against every single penny of the $13.6 billion for Ukraine.
So I hope--I hope--when it comes to the $33 billion that I hope we will be able to pass--but I am sure it will be a number at least comparable to that. But whatever the number is for the people of Ukraine, I hope that we will get unanimous support in the U.S. Congress.
I hope we won't see more than 200 Members of Republicans in the Congress voting against the people of Ukraine. This is not a difficult choice. You are either on one side or the other.
I said Mr. Putin is the incarnation of evil--he is. The good news is, we have another choice. The other choice is Mr. Zelenskyy, the people of Ukraine, and those brave fighters in Ukraine. They are the personification of all that we claim to stand for when we talk about democracy.
This isn't a moment to theorize or to talk about democracy in glowing terms without taking actions. They are doing the fighting on the battlefield. The least that we can do is vote the right way. That is the power you have as a Member of Congress. House, Senate, Democrat, Republican or Independent, you have the power to vote. And I hope that we will have unanimous support for the $33 billion that the President has asked for.
Now, what will that funding entail? I won't go through all of it, but this funding will include $20.4 billion in additional security and military assistance for Ukraine. It is important to put that into context, so it is basically 20 of the 33 will be for security and military assistance. That is on top of what has already been appropriated just since the battle--the war in Ukraine started when Russia invaded.
With President Biden's leadership and with a lot of support in the Congress, we have been able to provide billions of dollars just on the military and security assistance, not to mention the humanitarian support, the sanctions, and the unified approach that so many countries around the world have taken.
But we have a lot more to do, and in my judgment, the $33 billion won't be enough. We are going to be back at it probably in a few months providing more. But at a minimum, we have got to get this done for the people of Ukraine. Part of that appropriation will be the replenishing of donated NATO weapons and equipment.
This help, in total--all of this security assistance and other humanitarian support--will be critical to Ukraine's ability to prevail--to prevail--over Russian forces through the summer and the fall. We must continue to provide all of the artillery, the anti-tank, the anti-air weapons, and air defense systems and other capabilities that Ukraine can use to block Russian authoritarianism and support the Ukrainian people. However, regardless of how much support the United States, NATO, and other allies and partners provide, we must remember that nothing we do--nothing we do--is comparable to the awesome sacrifice for freedom and democracy that Ukrainians are now making every day when they give their lives--they give their lives in this war--and have their own families shattered in the process.
They are upholding--the people of Ukraine, those brave fighters on the battlefield every day, every week, every month now, those Ukrainians are upholding democracy, not just for themselves, not just for our country, but for the entire free world.
There are, of course, other consequences to this war. The war has already driven over 13 million Ukrainians from their homes. These Ukrainians, who are either refugees going to another country or internally displaced within Ukraine but are outside of their homes, that number is equal to the entire population--roughly equivalent, 13 million, to the entire population of my home State of Pennsylvania. Just imagine that, 13 million people being displaced. And, unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that will be the end.
So I want to commend the European Union and Ukrainian neighbors in the region for their warm welcome to such an unprecedented refugee flow from Ukraine. Now, recently, just two weeks ago, traveling through Italy, Georgia, and France, I saw everyday Italians, Georgians, Frenchmen and Frenchwomen opening their hearts and their homes to Ukrainian refugees, not to mention the people of Poland, who have done so much, and so many others.
Just one example, in Italy, faith-based nonprofits like Sant'Egidio that we had time to meet with on our trip have led the way in providing support to those in need.
I also commend the administration's work to support these refugees across Europe and those remaining in Ukraine, much of that work funded by part of the $13.6 billion that Congress appropriated in March.
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