Ukraine One Year Anniversary

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, one year into Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainians valiant defense has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties for the Russians.

What the Russians believed would be a victory in a matter of days or weeks has turned into now over just a year, bloody slog.

The Russian Bear has turned out to be a Paper Tiger on the fields of Ukraine.

The United States must remain committed as a partner with Ukraine to achieve victory.

Victory, Mr. Speaker, or Putin and his allied nations will attack the Baltic states or take Moldova or try to control the Black Sea.

Turkey, devastated by Erdogan's economics and the recent earthquake will now face a stark choice of remaining in NATO or becoming a Putin puppet, were Putin successful in Ukraine.

Victory--or China will green light a fully nuclear madman in North Korea and attempt a blockade of Taiwan.

In order to achieve that victory, President Biden must get the rest of the world even more engaged.

In December, members of this body were briefed by the departments of State and Treasury, and I recently wrote Secretary Blinken and Secretary Yellen in follow up regarding the funding strategy for supporting Ukraine humanitarily, in defense and military means, and in their monthly costs.

I raised two principal points.

First, in my view, Congress does not have the full financial overview of contributions being made by our allies and partners on behalf of Ukraine in a straightforward and simple manner available to all members.

They don't paint a complete picture.

As a new member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I look forward to hearing from State and USAID and the Defense Department in the near future on what they have been doing to track our funding in Ukraine and explain it in thorough detail to the Congress.

Second, I raised the successful 1990-1991 partnership between Secretary of State James Baker and Secretary of Treasury Nicholas Brady in developing an active solicitation of major countries from around the world to fund the U.S. enforcement of the United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing use of force to liberate Kuwait from Iraq's illegal invasion of their sovereign territory.

The result was that the United States received contributions from around the world of some $53 billion against an estimated total cost to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait of $60 billion.

While some of those contributions were in the form of in-kind material support, more than 90 percent was paid in cash.

The United States must more strongly engage our allies to share a greater financial burden for that military, humanitarian, and financial budget support for the government of Ukraine.

On February 20th, Japan pledged $5.5 billion in additional aid to Ukraine.

This is on top of the $1.3 billion in financial and humanitarian assistance it had already pledged.

This is a recent example of precisely what I believe the U.S. government should be achieving in a more aggressive and effective manner.

The worldwide response in support of Ukraine has been remarkable, but I believe that significantly more can be done to help Ukraine if additional countries provide more material and financial support--in Europe and beyond.

The U.S. military has a unique and important role in equipping, training, and providing related military materials.

A mission that suits us more than any other country.

However, as demonstrated in the example of Kuwait, obtaining broad financial support from more sources is essential, in my view, to maintaining popular political support in Europe and in the United States for victory in Ukraine.

This also demonstrates how all peoples from around the globe benefit from prompt success in the preservation of Ukraine's sovereignty.

Costs of goods, access to food, fuel, and financing are all impeded by the Russian Federation's illegal action. That makes the case that all nations are hurt by Russia's aggressions. All nations can support Ukraine.

President Biden must craft an active and effective campaign to bring forward the financial and material resources from around the world to support Ukraine in victory.

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