On Senate Floor, Portman Highlights Russia's Continued War Crimes In Ukraine, NATO Expansion

Press Release

This evening, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) delivered remarks on the Senate floor in support of Ukraine for the 17th consecutive week while the Senate has been in session. Portman continued to urge the Biden administration to send Ukraine more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) so they can effectively target Russian forces and noted the success they are having currently with just a handful. Portman also expressed support for NATO and discussed Finland and Sweden's application to join the alliance, as well as that of Ukraine. He also discussed how it would be beneficial for Ukraine to join NATO.

As the world watches this war approach the five-month mark, Portman shed light on recent Russian attacks on a Ukrainian shopping mall and residential apartment complex that horrifically killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians. As Co-Chair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, Senator Portman has spoken every week since the Russian invasion began to urge the administration to help Ukraine in its hour of need.

A transcript of his remarks can be found below and a video can be found here.

"I've come to the floor today, as was noted, to talk about Ukraine. Russia's brutal assault continues. We must do more here being, not just in the United States, but around the world to help Ukraine stand up to this brutality. This marks the 17th consecutive week in session I've been on the floor to discuss the unprovoked, illegal, and deadly assault on the people of Ukraine. This invasion started 138 days ago, and it's more critical than ever the United States and our allies support the efforts of Ukraine to defend itself against this assault. Let me just recap briefly the situation on the ground -- a lot has happened since we talked a couple of weeks ago. First, here in the north, you can see the light blue, which is the Ukrainian advances.

"Ukrainians have been successful in pushing back against the Russian offensive and taking back some of the territory around the city of Kharkiv. This is a critical area, obviously. Kharkiv is the sister city to my hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. I was involved in that sister city arrangement 40 years ago, and it's a beautiful city. It's been almost flattened by the unending and barbaric attacks from Russia. In the outskirts of Kharkiv, again, Ukrainian forces are not just holding the line, but also making gradual advances. Same is true here, in Kherson. The light blue here indicates where the Ukrainians have made progress, here in the south. In the south and Kharkiv there has been progress made. This is very important in the south here, because as you know Russia's goal is to try to shut off the entire Black Sea from Ukraine being able to access, and therefore, to continue to be one of the great exporters of the world.

"They have blocked any passage here of the ships that could be sending wheat and other grains to the rest of the world, including to Africa, where they are very dependent on Ukrainian wheat to keep people from starving. Yet the Russians are blocking these. But these cities are still in control of the Ukrainians. It's essential that that continue, that Russia not create a landlocked Ukraine, which would over the long-term be incredibly detrimental to the economy of Ukraine. It's vital that they do well there. I will say, though, here in the east it's a different situation. Here is Donetsk and Luhansk, you hear about those, the so-called Donbas region. This is where Russia has made incremental progress in the last couple of weeks using, again, bombs and missiles that are flattening cities, killing civilians.

"This city of Sievierodonetsk, you've heard about, which is about right here, has fallen to the Russian forces after a months-long battle over the last couple weeks. Its twin city, Lysychansk, also in this region, has also fallen, completing Russia's brutal conquest of the what is called the Luhansk region. Donetsk is still partly in Russia control, partly not. Luhansk is now in Russian control. But it's important to remember this, Russia paid dearly for every inch of Luhansk. By the way, much of which they flattened, literally destroyed before occupying it. They lost troops and they lost military equipment. But significantly, because taking this area required massive amounts of resources from Russia, it drew attention away from the north and Kharkiv as we saw, and down here in Kherson. It enabled these brave Ukrainian forces in other places to make progress, not just to hold out against the overwhelming Russian onslaught, but to make progress.

"The Russians have announced they're in an operational pause, meaning they're claiming they're going to stop their large-scale offenses until their soldiers have rested. But as in the past, they can't be trusted and in fact, small-scale offenses, missile strikes and rocket attacks continue all along this front line. We also must not downplay even what these sporadic strikes can do. Consider this tragedy that occurred about two weeks ago at a shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk. This is in eastern Ukraine, the area we just talked about. As more than a thousand innocent Ukrainian civilians shopped with their friends and families at this shopping mall, a Russian strategic bomber launched a large KH-22 missile. This is a long-range, nuclear-capable missile that was initially designed to destroy aircraft carriers -- aircraft carriers -- and they shot it into the middle of a shopping mall. Turned it into a burning inferno. You can see here in this photograph. As a result of the explosion and the fire, 20 people were killed immediately and more than 50 were wounded. Dozens more were declared missing.

"We are still getting the final numbers from this horrific tragedy, but it occurred during the summit of the so-called G-7. That's the group of developed countries, larger economies -- Japan, the United States, and a few European countries -- who were meeting to talk about the issue of Russia and Ukraine, among other things. The G-7 rightfully condemned this atrocity as an abominable attack, an attack on civilians at a shopping mall. Just yesterday evening in Chasiv Yar, which is a residential town in eastern Ukraine, a Russian rocket attack struck an apartment complex and killed at least 15 people. More than 20 people are believed trapped in the rubble, as emergency workers continue to work today to be able to free those who are trapped, try to rescue innocent civilians who are under attack. Again, this is an apartment complex. People are trapped inside it even as we talk. These barbaric, cowardly long-range missile attacks on civilian targets have to be condemned by all of us, but they have to be stopped -- in two ways.

"One, by providing Ukrainians with what they need in terms of anti-aircraft, anti-missile technology, but also by giving Ukrainians the ability to use these longer-range missiles themselves. Right now the Russians can sit back with impunity and launch these attacks. I join the people of Ukraine in mourning the loss of these innocent civilians at the hands of Russia's cruelty. The terror, by the way, that's caused by these attacks is not an accident. It's part of the Russian war plan, to cause terror, striking civilian targets is certainly one thing they're doing, continuing to blockade those black seaports I talked about is another one. Increasing the economic cost of this war on the Ukrainian people. This is one reason why, by the way, a couple of weeks ago just before we left for the recess we had a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a resolution to name Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. That passed on a bipartisan basis. My hope is it comes to the floor of the United States Senate so we can all go on record again condemning what's going on over there and making it clear that Russia has become a pariah country, that this is not normal behavior, even in the tragedy of war. Striking civilian targets deliberately is unfortunately continuing day in and day out.

"In response to these brutal acts, the bravery and effectiveness of the Ukrainian defenders has been impressive, but not surprising. Think about it. They're defending their families. They're also defending freedom, defending their homeland. The stakes of this war are high and the fate of a sovereign country hangs in the balance. But I will say today it's not just about Ukraine as important as that is. It's bigger than that. Because if President Putin is successful in taking more of Ukraine than he already controls, if he does in fact expand beyond what he's already done taking Crimea, taking this area of Luhansk and Donetsk, taking the southern part of Ukraine, he's not going to stop there. I don't think anybody believes that or is so naive to believe that. In 2016 he stated, "the borders of Russia never end.' This is after he attacked Ukraine the first time. It was in 2016. In a speech claiming victory in May of this year, President Putin painted Ukrainians as Nazis. Remember the President of Ukraine is Jewish. His family went through the ordeal of the Holocaust, but he's painting Ukrainians, somehow, as Nazis saying the invasion of Ukrainian was inevitable and that he was forced into this conflict by NATO. NATO is not an offensive organization. It's strictly defensive.

"The disinformation and lies also comes from those around him. Vladimir Medinsky, one of President Putin's senior advisers, lamented that Russia's territory was greatly diminished from the time when Moscow controlled more than 14 currently independent nations, including Finland and Poland. This territorial retreat is, "not forever,' he said. Europeans are waking up to this one-time unimaginable threat. According to a European Council on Foreign Relations opinion poll conducted two months ago, a possible Russian invasion of their nation is seen as one of the top three threats now by 53 percent of Swedes, 54 percent of Romanians, 40 percent of Germans. I was just in Romania a few weeks ago and got to hear from Romanians directly about this concern. I also went to Moldova where there's even more of a concern because there is a Russian occupied area called Transnistria right along their country. So what can be done to stop and reverse the Russian gains here in the east? The most important issue to me is to help these brave Ukrainians be able to defend themselves by giving them the weapons to level the playing field with Russia so they are not constantly outgunned.

"I've heard this from President Zelenskyy. We've all heard it from Russian forces that they're making some progress in the east because they have these weapons, these missiles. And the Ukrainians do not. We also heard about this from members of the European Parliament who came here to visit us about three weeks ago, who came to the Ukraine Caucus. We also heard from some fighter pilots who came about two and a half weeks ago and met with our Ukrainian caucus. What they need are the weapons to be able to respond. Their words have been explicit and direct. Russian artillery outguns theirs in terms of range and in terms of accuracy. They can sit back and fire on Ukrainian military and civilians targets and the Ukrainians cannot respond. They cannot reach them.

"Ukraine needs advanced Western rocket artillery systems to even those odds. Thankfully the United States and several of our allies have these exact systems. The UK has some systems, Germany has some systems. Over the past month, the United States has provided Ukraine several of what are called HIMARS, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. We've got hundreds of these in our inventory, by the way, and many of which are not with active units. In other words, they'd be available. These are superior to Russian artillery in almost every way. Mobility, reload time, accuracy, and most importantly, range. And yet during Ukraine's hour of need we continue to move too slowly.

"In the initial tranche of HIMARS, say about six weeks ago, only four of these units were announced. They are now in service as we understand it and they're working. Four more were announced a few weeks ago and another four were announced this past Friday. Reports are that these are still in transit. They're not yet being used to protect these Ukrainian civilians who are being bombed. They need more and they need them now. Several have come from Germany and from the UK but they need more and they need them now. How many do they need? It depends who you talk to, but the Ukrainian military officials who have spoken out on this, who are the experts say they need at least 48 of these systems to be able to begin to turn the tables in the east. The United States is now committed to 12. Only four are definitely in place. We need to move faster. Apparently there was a lot of discussion within the agencies, within the White House whether to do this or not. That's what took longer for these HIMARS to be approved. My view is we've had the dialogue. These systems are no more escalatory then Javelins were or other weapons. These are defensive weapons. These are the ability for Ukraine for defend itself and I hope we can continue to provide them and move more quickly. They're working. They're proving their worth.

"Let me show you a photograph of what HIMARS can do to Russian logistics. These are images of Russian ammunition dumps exploding after reportedly being struck by missiles from a HIMARS system. Previously Ukraine could not reach these munition dumps, but now with HIMARS they can. Striking these ammo dumps can have a devastating impact on Russian forces. These are depots of weapons that are behind the Russian lines but in the country of Ukraine. And finally, they can access them. Striking them is going to have a devastating impact according to, Serhii Kuzan, the Chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center in Kyiv. Ukraine has used HIMARS rockets to now destroy 20 warehouses of Russian artillery ammunition. As I said earlier, Russian soldiers are currently in an operational pause to recover and resupply before future offenses, so they say. But they cannot resupply without ammunition. So destroying these hubs will set Russia's timetables back and buy Ukraine more time to prepare and to receive more western military equipment like the HIMARS.

"These pictures are exactly the proof we need to show that what we are sending is now making a difference. Imagine what they could do if they had enough to be able to truly be able to push back. These HIMARS systems arrived in Ukraine too late to avoid some of the damage that we've been talking about today and certainly some of these cities, like Sievierodonetsk that we talked about that has now fallen to the Russians, or Lysychansk, which has fallen to the Russians. They arrived too late for the thousands of brave Ukrainians that were killed and wounded defending those cities. If we don't act quickly, then future HIMARS rockets will arrive too late to save more Ukrainian citizens, more Ukrainian soldiers, more Ukrainian innocents. Time is of the essence and I urge the administration not to delay. Again I'm pleased they're getting those weapons in, wish it had been sooner, and we now have to encourage more and faster. When people understandably ask about our support for Ukraine, our taxpayer-funded aid to the tune of billions of dollars, they deserve to know that their hard-earned taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely. In my view, that means spending it on weapons like HIMARS that are actually making a difference on the battlefield. I believe the aid that we and our allies are providing is a wise investment that will pay dividends over time, but let's provide them the right aid.

"Ukrainians are defending their country with bravery and skill, exceeding all expectations and they're ensuring that their country is not being handed over to President Putin. We've got to ensure them that the United States and our allies are doing all we can to help them save their country. We know that making any territorial concessions to Russian would only embolden President Putin and other future would-be conquerors. The lesson they would learn is that with enough patience we can wear down the West and get what we want. So, I was pleased two weeks ago when the leaders of the so-called G-7 countries, again the U.S., Japan, European countries, stated, "We will continue to pray financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.' We saw how territorial conceptions in the late 1930's only increased Nazi Germany's appetite and this is clearly no different. Russia's goals are not limited to just to Donbas or southern Ukraine. President Zelenskyy clearly understands this. He said to CNN recently, "Ukrainians are not ready to give away their land, to accept these territories belong to Russia. This is our land.' I could not agree more. In fact, it goes beyond Ukraine. President Putin will conquer as much of the former Soviet empire as we let him. We must stop him here in Ukraine.

"With regard to sanctions, the EU is still using Russian oil and gas, sending roughly $870 million a day to fund the Russian war machine. We have the capacity here in the United States to help our partners and shore up our domestic energy production, not only important for Americans to get the cost of gas down with more supply, but also critical for our allies. We're seeing some small progress, but much more needs to be done to reduce this reliance on Russian energy. By the end of this year, we expect coal and oil to be phased out. The United States must do its part and expand our energy production, while at the same time be a leader in developing new energy technologies that can help reduce emissions and increase national, as well as global, security. This is not either/or. It should be all of the above. We should be producing what we need right now to ensure that Europe can stop its dependency on Russia, and sending almost a billion dollars a day to fund the war machine. But at the same time we should be producing energy from all sources, including green energy, including nuclear energy.

"Like sanctions and military aid, when the United States lead, the world tends to follow. But most importantly our allies and enemies watch us. This is true with regard to a revived NATO right now. In fact in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as we talked about earlier, both Sweden and Finland have applied to join NATO, shrugging off long histories of neutrality. In Brussels, NATO ambassadors on July 5th signed the accession protocols and put them a step closer. Now all 30 NATO nations will review their applications for ratification. Canada, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Germany have already ratified Finland and Sweden's applications. Let's join them. Let's do it this week. Let's do it through an expedited procedure and get it done. I look forward to voting in favor of those applications in committee and on the floor. We cannot forget that Russia has claimed that this war started because Ukraine wanted to join NATO. Of course they did. They reaffirmed that in 2014 when they threw off a corrupt Russian-backed government. They're looking westward, to Europe, to us, to freedom, to democracy. They want to join NATO and the European Union and form ever closer bonds with the trans-Atlantic community.

"I've long believed that Ukraine deserved a NATO membership action plan to provide a clear path to eventual NATO membership. They've made significant progress in doing this. This brutal invasion is just Russia's latest attempt to throw that progress off course. We must not be deterred. Now, as we enter the fifth month of this war, I've come down here every week to talk about it, we have seen the resilience and the fortitude of the Ukrainians, even as their brothers and husbands go to fight for the homeland, the women of Ukraine are incredibly brave as well. And I've seen them at the border with Poland, I've seen it at the border with Moldova and I've seen them as they've come to the United States and talk about what's going on in their country. They know this is the fight during our generation where democracy is on the line. How this war develops will have far-reaching impacts on the entire globe.

"In Ohio I see this all the time. A couple weeks ago I was in Cleveland for what was called Amplify the Voice, a benefit concert for Ukraine. We had a thousand people come to this beautiful Severance Hall, which is the music center for the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the premier orchestras in the world, by the way. They made the center available to the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus to perform to, again, an audience of people who were Ukrainian-Americans but also from every nationality, particularly the nationalities communities as we call them in Cleveland, which would be people from eastern and central Europe who understand the importance of this fight. So Lithuanians were there, Poles were there, Romanians were there, Hungarians were there, people from all over the region. The concert raised funds for the Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio's Fund to Aid Ukraine. They are doing great work. It's amazing, there were people who spoke who were doing something to help with regard to Ukraine: medical supplies, armored vests, helping with regard to emergency supplies just so people can have enough food to get by when they're subject to some of these bombings we've seen today. We also heard a beautiful concert.

"Ukrainians of all stripes certainly understand what's going on and why this is so important and have for a long time. Because they know what it's like to live under the thumb of authoritarians. They broke away from it many times during their history and again more recently in 1991 and again in 2014. I was in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, where Ukrainians decided for themselves that they wanted to turn away from Russian domination and turned to us. I believe we can help them win this time. I'm confident of it. That's why I've introduced a bipartisan resolution with Senators Manchin, Murkowski, and Hassan to recognize the United States commitment to help rebuild Ukraine.

"According to the United Nations Human Rights Council, more than seven million civilians have fled their homeland and there's been about $600 billion worth of damage to Ukraine's infrastructure. By the way, those refugees, those civilians who I have met, they all want to go home. In a sense, it's not appropriate to call them refugees because they're really just Ukrainians who are temporarily forced to leave their country. But they all want to go home and rebuild Ukraine. It is not just the human toll we see captured in images and videos, but people's homes and livelihoods have vanished overnight, so they are going to need help. The countries of the free world are with us and we ought to make sure they step up, including some countries that were less comfortable providing military assistance, are providing more monetary assistance. Some of those countries are really going to need to step up in terms of helping to get Ukraine back on its feet. Now is not the time for us to back away. We have to be able to win this militarily and then begin the rebuilding. It is not a time for us to be tentative or equivocal. At this critical juncture, let's lead our allies to provide what Ukraine needs to protect their homeland and to defend democracy. I yield the floor."

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