Providing for the Costs of Loan Guarantees for Ukraine

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I come to the floor as we are at a moment of truth and a moment of incredible importance, and I wish to start off by acknowledging the distinguished Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Corker, for the spirit in which we have worked together to marshal forces to bring critical legislation to the floor at a critical time in history. This is the type of relationship we have had for the last 15 months, during which time we have often seen such partisanship, where on every major piece of legislation that has passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it has passed on a strong bipartisan vote, and I appreciate his leadership and his working with us.

Let me reiterate what I have said on the Senate floor. President Putin is watching. He is waiting to see what we will do, waiting to see if we have the resolve to act, waiting to see if he has a green light to take the next step. I believe we need to act now and pass this legislation, and I welcome the flexibility the House has shown in its resolve to move this quickly upon receipt.

Although I believe our response to Russia's annexation of Crimea should have included IMF reforms to strengthen the U.S. role in the international community, that will not be the case, but we still need to act on this issue today. So I hope, in short order, we can have the IMF reform legislation on the floor and take a responsible vote on an important issue.

But let us be clear where we are at this moment. Let us be clear about what happened in Ukraine over the last several years and what is happening now as Ukraine simply looks westward. Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was elected on a platform that advocated closer ties to Europe. In fact, his first trip abroad was not to Moscow but to Brussels to meet with European Union officials. For 3 years Ukraine officials voted in good faith with their European counterparts. They believed they did so with their President's support. Ukrainian public opinion polls favored the conclusion of an agreement between the EU and the Ukraine that would increase trade and cooperation, allowing more people, goods, services, and ideas to cross the border from the West.

On November 21, Yanukovych flipped 180 degrees. He announced an end to talks with the European Union, and Ukrainians felt bitterly betrayed. For 20 years, Ukraine has struggled to economically develop. They have struggled to establish representative government. They have struggled to achieve a stable way forward, a path of economic security and political democracy. The association agreement with the European Union had promised a path toward those goals. So people were furious, and they took to the streets. They knew from personal experience what the world now knows--that Yanukovych and his government and his family had stolen tens of billions of dollars from Ukrainian taxpayers, jeopardizing the solvency and independence of their country to support a lavish lifestyle while the public went without.

The people who took to the Maidan Square in the freezing cold were simply looking westward. They believed the European Union was their last best hope to break the cycle of corruption. They knew their future was being stolen. So they marched and they took beatings from Yanukovych's paramilitary forces, not for a treaty but for the hope of a better, more honest and free Ukraine that it promised.

Putin resorted to outright extortion to keep Ukraine in his sphere of influence, essentially offering to buy Ukraine by offering Yanukovych $15 billion, and it would have worked but for the uprising of the Ukrainian people who realized this was a Faustian bargain and that Putin was the devil, not their savior.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians demonstrated for 3 months to call for the President's resignation. On February 22 of this year, President Yanukovych fled to Russia and an interim government was installed in Ukraine.

Almost immediately, Russian forces took control of the Crimean Peninsula, a clear violation of international law and Russia's own commitments under the Budapest agreement and the Helsinki Final Act. This demands a swift and coordinated and powerful response from the international community and from this Congress. It demands a message to Putin of our resolve and to the Ukrainian people of our support.

That message came, in part, on March 13, when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed, by a bipartisan vote of 14 to 3, the Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014.

In addition to providing $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine to provide crucial support to stabilize Ukraine's economy, this legislation authorizes assistance for democracy, governance, and civil society programs as well as for enhanced security cooperation. It provides support to the Ukrainian Government to help recover access linked to corruption by former President Yanukovych, his family, and other government officials.

It imposes sanctions against those who are responsible for violent human rights abuses against antigovernment protesters as well as those responsible for undermining the peace, security, stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the Ukraine. It imposes asset freezes and visa revocations on Russian officials and their associates who are complicit in or responsible for significant corruption in Ukraine and authorizes sanctions against any Russian official engaged in corruption in the Ukraine or in Russia. Putin's cronies should recognize that Putin may not be the right horse to be

betting on any longer. Finally, it sends a powerful message to Russia that there are consequences for using force to annex sovereign territory against the established norms of the international community.

I will take one other moment to say that I have read some editorials suggesting that Ukraine is not that important to us; that it is more important to Europe than it is to us, so what could be our interest. Let me offer a few observations of what the interest of the United States is.

For some time we have been working to see Ukraine move to a democratic, stable government, looking westward, and in doing so strengthening a big part of Eastern Europe at the end of the day in a way that strengthens the security of that region and the fiscal opportunities of that region.

We look at the Ukraine and we say to ourselves, well, they are not a NATO member. But other NATO allies--some of which I met with when I was in Brussels this past week--who are NATO members are watching and asking: What will Europe and the United States do in the face of Russian aggression? What is our ultimate security going to depend on? We are a NATO member. We are, under article 5 of NATO's treaty, ultimately supposed to be protected because we are committed to the protection of all our other neighbors under NATO. Some of those countries actually meet the full responsibility they have under NATO to pay their quota for the collective defense.

So Ukraine is not a NATO member, but they are looking at what the West's resolve is in the face of this aggression and the possibility of Russian forces moving further west, asking: Is NATO going to stand up for me? That agreement is one of the fundamental institutions that has created security on the European Continent and for which America twice--twice--sent its sons and daughters abroad to ultimately guarantee that security. We need to ensure that NATO continues to be a vibrant entity for the collective security of the United States and of Europe. This is another reason we are interested.

Thirdly, I would just simply say, as I have said on the Senate floor before, the world is watching. China is watching, and they are wondering what America and the West will do as they look at territories they dispute with our allies--Japan and South Korea in the South China Sea. They say: The West let Putin get away with this. Why should we not take those territories? There will be no consequence. Or as we are negotiating with Iran across the table to stop their nuclear weapons program, the Iranians look and ask: How much will the West punish Russia for this aggression, because if there isn't much consequence, then why should I not try to get the maximum of this deal or not accept the deal at all. Or North Korea, which wants to advance even further its missile program, which already possesses nuclear capability, what is their calculation?

I could go around the globe describing at this moment, beyond the Ukraine, how the European Union and the United States acts will send a very clear message to world actors, and that message hopefully will be one of strength, because in doing so we may avert the consequences of security challenges around the globe, avert the possibility we will have to send our sons and daughters into harm's way if we act decisively, if we act with strength.

That is the opportunity we have. The world is watching, and we must rise to the challenge. Passing this legislation goes a long way toward that goal, and that is both the opportunity and the responsibility before the Senate. I urge my colleagues to speak with one voice.

I hope we get as near to unanimity as possible, as we have done at other times; for example, on the question of sanctions on Iran. This is such a moment. If the Senate speaks with one voice, I think President Putin will understand the consequences of miscalculating further. I hope that is the opportunity of which we will avail ourselves and, in doing so, send a message beyond Putin to the rest of the world that we have the resolve necessary to rise to such challenges.

With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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