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Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I am really pleased to be able to come to the floor this afternoon to join my colleague from Ohio, Senator Portman. We twice traveled to Ukraine together. I have appreciated his leadership as cochair of the Ukraine Caucus and his advocacy for not only legislation to help Ukraine but also for these reports which weekly have kept the war in Ukraine in front of the American people, which is so important as we think about how we continue support in our public for what is happening in Ukraine and this fight that the Ukrainians are so courageously waging.

I am also pleased to be here with my colleague Senator Tillis, who, along with me, cochairs the Senate NATO Observer Group, because we are going to be voting this afternoon on ratification of the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Together, we led a bipartisan delegation to Madrid last month, which included three Democrats and four Republicans, and we were able to visit Helsinki and Stockholm on our way into Madrid to talk about just why it is so important that Finland and Sweden are joining NATO.

I wanted to talk about both of these topics this afternoon because they are connected.

As Senator Portman said, there is a reason why Finland and Sweden, after decades of maintaining neutrality, are looking at joining NATO. It is because of this unprovoked, brutal war by Russia against Ukraine. If they are successful in Ukraine, we don't know where that will end, so we need to make the connection for people.

A year ago, no one would have thought that Sweden and Finland would have wanted NATO membership, but, of course, a lot has happened in that year.

Vladimir Putin made one of the most consequential miscalculations in modern history. I think it is the biggest miscalculation in foreign policy since Hitler went into Russia in World War II. He went into Ukraine to wage this unprovoked, premeditated war upon the people of Ukraine. Part of his rationale was to talk about NATO and his opposition to Ukraine's joining NATO but also because he thought he would be able to stall the enlargement of NATO. He thought he would be able to split the NATO allies. In fact, just the opposite has happened. The global response to punish Putin for this war in Ukraine is unprecedented. Putin's barbaric campaign in Ukraine and threats to democracy around the world have resulted in the strongest iteration of NATO to date.

And now here we are. The United States is about to welcome two very capable, very qualified and deserving members into the alliance, which will further strengthen our global coordination to preserve our rules- based order.

I have spoken before in this Chamber about the strong bipartisan support for Finland and Sweden's NATO membership. When Sweden and Finland announced their intent to apply for NATO membership, Senator Tillis and I led a letter to President Biden that within about 24 hours was cosigned by 80 of our colleagues, all pledging to support swift ratification of the accession protocols.

Just last month, Senator Tillis and I led that delegation to Madrid to the NATO summit, and we did it at the request of both the majority leader, Schumer, and the minority leader, McConnell.

When meeting with our allies and partners, we talked about our commitment to return to the Senate and to work hard to swiftly ratify the accession protocols, and we have done just that. We had hoped to be the first body to do that ratification. We are going to be the 22nd, which I think is very good news for NATO and for the effort to ensure that Finland and Sweden become members of NATO.

On July 19, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Senator Portman and I sit, unanimously voted in support of NATO's accession protocols.

Today's vote is not just important for Sweden and Finland and for NATO, but it is also important for Ukraine, as Senator Portman laid out. The Ukrainian people are on the frontlines of a war for democracy and for our collective shared values--values that underpin the heart of the NATO alliance. Sweden and Finland's membership will bolster our efforts to hold Putin to account as he wages this war to eradicate Ukrainian culture.

Putin's decision to invade Ukraine affirmed what we have long known-- that Vladimir Putin does not respect the distinct history, culture, and identity of the Ukrainian people. His view of history, of course, is false. It is distorted, and it is deadly. His unprovoked war in Ukraine is a manifestation of his delusional ideas and his blatant attempt to wipe Ukraine off the map of Europe. But despite the challenges to their sovereignty, for generations, the Ukrainian people have maintained their own traditions, their own language, and their own dream of independence.

Putin is waging propaganda campaigns that seek to justify his goals to the Russian people. He has deployed deliberate, harmful rhetoric of ``de-Nazifying'' Ukraine. He is pursuing a broader, maniacal agenda to eradicate everything Ukrainian--the land, the people, the language, the culture.

We know that Russia established filtration camps in Russia and Ukrainian territory even before the February 24 invasion. Now reports are that there are over 1 million Ukrainians who have been forcibly relocated to Russia, including about 250,000 children--children who have been taken from their Ukrainian parents and sent to Russia.

We need to call Putin's actions what they are. They are acts of genocide. After the horrors of the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, Yugoslav wars, the international community vowed to ``never again'' let such immense human tragedy happen on our watch.

We must not let Putin accomplish his mission of destroying the Ukrainian people and dismantling the international rules-based order which has been in place for more than 70 years. We must hold him accountable because we know that if he is successful, Putin's Russification campaign is not going to end with Ukraine. Who will be next? The Baltic States? Eastern European countries? Romania? Poland?

As Americans, we have a moral obligation to work with our allies to hold Putin to account, and I am proud that this body is doing just that. Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which Senator Portman and I are both members, introduced a resolution recognizing Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide, but, of course, we must do more.

Today's ratification vote is going to be another step in sending a message to both Vladimir Putin and the Ukrainian people that NATO is unified and that we are going to continue to support their efforts to push back against this brutal dictator.

I hope that our colleagues will join us in celebrating today's important moment of NATO's enlargement from 30 to 32 members. This historic accession is a testament to the global commitment to not be bystanders amid a war that violates all international norms and seeks to destabilize our rules-based order. I hope that our remaining NATO allies will move swiftly to advance Sweden and Finland's NATO membership.

Amid Russia's horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Ukrainian people, we must recognize the importance of our shared transatlantic values to push back on Putin's dangerous and bloodthirsty war against Ukraine.

Again, I am pleased that we are here to support both Ukraine and the ratification of Sweden and Finland into NATO. I am sure we will have a very strong bipartisan vote this afternoon, and I look forward to continuing to work with NATO and with our colleagues as we do everything we can to support the success of Ukraine against Vladimir Putin.

I yield to my cochair of the Senate NATO Observer Group, Senator Tillis.

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