Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, today marks exactly 3 months since Russia began its war on Ukraine. I have come to the Senate floor for what is now the 13th straight week since that time while the Senate has been in session to talk about this unprovoked, illegal, and brutal war that they are waging on our ally Ukraine, a democratic and sovereign country. Since I spoke last week, we had a very important development. At the end of last week, the Senate came together in a strong bipartisan vote to pass what is called the supplemental funding bill for Ukraine. The vote was 86 to 11. It passed the House the week prior with a similar strong bipartisan vote. Congress, in this legislation, actually went above what the President had requested. He initially requested $33 billion and Congress decided to provide $40 billion to ensure that the Ukrainians had the funding they needed through this fall. In combination with the help from about 40 different countries around the world, Ukrainians now have the ammunition and weapons, as well as the humanitarian and economic support they need to survive and also to continue their fight for the next several months. Importantly, the supplemental spending bill will replenish what is called the Presidential Drawdown Authority. It was depleted. That is the authority that lets us very quickly transfer weapons from our own surpluses to the Ukrainians and it has been very effective. The legislation raised the Presidential Drawdown Authority cap to $11 million, $3 billion over the President's request. Again, the notion is this is going to be needed. The bill also includes $6 billion for what is called the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a program I first authored in 2015 to enhance the Ukrainian military's ability to fight off Russian aggression. When we started that program, Russia was only in this part of Ukraine and the line of contact was here in eastern Ukraine. Here are a couple of maps that show the progress that has been made in pushing back as Russia has invaded Ukraine starting on February 24. All this area here that is in blue was controlled by Russia at one point, as was this lighter red area. The darker red area was what Russia took back in 2014 after Ukraine chose to look to the West rather than to Russia for alliance and support. This is what they took in 2014. Then they came in on February 24 with the hope of taking the entire country, and they did control this territory. Everything you see in blue has been pushed back. It is no longer Russian-held territory. It is now back in Ukrainian hands. So this is the map of today. There is progress being made around Kharkiv. This is a beautiful city in this part of Ukraine. The blue you see here is where Ukrainian military have recently pushed back the Russian forces--in one case, right up to the Russian border. You also see the same here in the eastern and southern--more southern parts of Ukraine, where some progress has been made. But there is fierce fighting all in this region. And, in fact, recently, you can see where the Russians have made some progress in trying to cut off some of the Ukrainian troops. Initially, they had hoped to make a bridge here to cut off troops in this area. Thousands of them now are pushing through right here and making some progress. It is a hot war, and the Ukrainians are desperate to have enough ammunition to continue to fight that war to protect their homeland and to have better weapons to be able to push back against Russia. The end of this war has to be that Russia is pushed out of Ukraine. That has to be our objective. It is certainly one that the Ukrainians share. The successes against Russia in the battlefield are a testament to the bravery and the effectiveness of Ukrainians who are fighting to defend their freedom, fighting to defend their families, defend their homeland. But it is also a success that is due to the effectiveness of our help, and particularly, the Ukraine Security Initiative over the past 7 years, especially the training element of it. It was money well spent by U.S. taxpayers to ensure that--along with other NATO countries who provided funding for this, as well--that there was a training component to ensure the military would be more effective. And you can see the results of it. They are outgunned, outnumbered, and yet have been able to push Russia out of all this part of Ukraine and are making some progress in these areas. The supplemental spending bill I talked about also includes $4 billion in foreign military financing to allow Ukraine to get American- made weapons and equipment through a lend-lease-type program. Importantly, the supplemental also includes $3.9 billion to support enhanced U.S. troop deployments to Europe. That is critical to me because it has never been more important than now to ensure that we have the troops we need along the border here to be able to ensure Russia knows that if they go beyond Ukraine, we will respond and respond forcefully as NATO--all 30 countries of NATO. So we have reinforced our troops' presence in Eastern Europe, places like Poland, places like Slovakia, Romania, and around the region to be able to ensure that our article 5 agreement under NATO--which is a mutual defense commitment--can be kept. Again, it is not just us, but it is all the members of NATO. If Russians make a further mistake and do what President Putin has talked about doing--going to places like the Baltics, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia--NATO will be there, and that should be a big deterrent. Of course, this legislation, the supplemental, was not inexpensive. Forty billion dollars is a lot of money. It has to be subject to appropriate safeguards for transparency and accountability. Last week, I spoke about many of these safeguards that some of us helped get into the legislation, including the critical role that Congress will play in providing regular oversight over these funds. I expect the administration to keep Congress promptly informed of how it intends to spend this money as required by this law. Effective oversight of Ukraine will also require a strong diplomatic presence on the ground. We have people there watching how the money is being spent and can report back. I am pleased that the administration heeded the Senate's call to reopen our embassy in Kyiv last Sunday. Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine, here in the middle of Ukraine. It now has a U.S. embassy presence. The officials at the embassy were here in Poland. Some have gone to Lviv in the last few weeks, but now, as of this last week, we are back in Kyiv and we are open for business. By the way, the same day the embassy opened, we reported out the new ambassador nominee for Ukraine. We haven't had an ambassador there for way too long--about a year and a half or so. And we actually then voted on her on the Senate floor--it may be the fastest nomination ever through this place. That is very important. We unanimously confirmed Bridget Brink to be the Ambassador. She was the Ambassador to Slovakia. She has been in Ukraine before as a Foreign Service Officer. I think she is a very good choice. She is leaving her post in Slovakia and going right into Ukraine. Our diplomatic presence there is once again going to be in a strong position and, therefore, telling the rest of the world that the United States is here and here to stay. Now that Congress has provided this $40 billion to support Ukraine and to support our troops in the area, it is up to the administration to ensure that it is used effectively, particularly with regard to the military assistance. I encourage the administration to use these funds in accordance with the needs on the ground in Ukraine. We have to be sure that we are giving them what they actually need. We have to listen to the Ukrainians who are fighting on the front lines. To me, this would include, as an example, what is called the mobile Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, or MLRS, that they are asking for. This enables them and Ukraine to sit back a little further and not be subject to shelling from the Russian forces, and yet to provide damage to some of the artillery Russia is using against these cities--flattening these beautiful cities and killing so many civilians. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking if we stop providing certain weapons systems like the MLRS, that somehow we will, therefore, not be provoking Russia and that President Putin will gracefully acknowledge that gesture and cease his assault or lessen his assault on Ukraine. That is not going to happen. Let me be clear. Russia's unprovoked and brutal invasion of a sovereign and democratic Ukraine is the provocation here; not us, not the military assistance we are providing Ukraine just to be able to defend their homeland and their families. President Biden must be forward-leaning in providing military assistance to the Ukrainians that they need and make it clear that we are in this conflict until it ends--until Russian troops leave, until the bombardments end. If President Putin senses weakness or equivocation on our part or the part of our allies, he will intensify his attacks on Ukraine. I want to speak for a moment about the broader situation in Europe. Back in 2014, Ukraine made this decision to ally with us, with Europe, with freedom, with democracy, rather than Russia and authoritarianism and tyranny. Russia did not take that well. Again, that is when they annexed Crimea here and parts of the Donbas, Luhansk, and Donetsk. When they did that, the reaction of the West was, frankly, underwhelming. When President Putin launched this war--comprehensive war--on February 24, he probably expected the same feckless response. The global community, when these two happened, really did not respond as forcefully as we should have. Instead of getting the same response that he expected, President Putin initiated an abrupt reversal, particularly in European diplomacy and military policy. Previously, Europe prioritized avoiding any conflict with Russia by following practices that they believed would be seen by the Kremlin as nonconfrontational. The European and the global approach, including the U.S. approach, to Russia and Ukraine changed when this unjustified and brutal assault began. Just as President Putin has weakened Russia's position with his unprovoked invasion, the NATO alliance that he tried to undermine has only grown stronger. In fact, two new countries, Finland and Sweden, have now officially applied for the 30-member-strong NATO membership. In the aftermath of Russia's invasion, public support for joining NATO skyrocketed in Finland and Sweden. This is especially remarkable in Sweden, whose policy of neutrality dates all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars, well before World War II. But as President Putin has indiscriminately killed innocent men, women, and children in Ukraine and flattened some of the most beautiful cities, the Finnish and Swedish people have seen the benefit of NATO as a security blanket for them too. I am glad Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO. It is the world's most successful military alliance in history. Each of these two countries has an impressive military and a commitment to higher defense spending, so they have a lot of value to add to the NATO alliance. Their membership will further tilt the power base in Europe in NATO's favor and that is good for peace and tranquility. It is good for the United States, and it is good for our allies. I was pleased that President Biden hosted the leaders of both those countries last week and that Leader McConnell also visited Finland and Sweden when he was overseas just a couple of weeks ago. I join the leader in calling for the Senate to approve their membership bids to NATO before the August recess. Let's make the United States the first country to approve their applications for NATO membership. I understand that all 30 of our NATO allies have been supportive, with one exception, Turkey. They have expressed concerns about Finland and Sweden joining the alliance for issues unrelated to NATO, in my view. I trust these issues can be worked out among the three countries and encourage the administration to take a lead in moving this application forward. Joining NATO is a serious matter of war and peace. No one should be playing politics here. I look forward to supporting Finland and Sweden's NATO application when they are voted on here in this Chamber. The Russian military has suffered substantial losses in this war already. Exact estimates are impossible to come by, but it appears in just the first 3 months of this war, Russia has lost as many soldiers as it did in the 9-year war that they waged in Afghanistan. Let's remember that President Putin thought this would be an easy victory. He thought Ukraine's defenses would be torn apart and shattered in a matter of days and the Ukrainians would lose all hope and all morale. And he thought his actions would split NATO, that the alliance would be unable to respond. Clearly, the opposite has been the case. And within Russia, there has been dissent, as well. Last week, Boris Bondarev, Counselor at the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to United Nations in Geneva resigned his post. His letter to his colleagues is telling. This is from a senior Russian official: For 20 years of my diplomatic career, I have seen turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year-- Referring to the date the invasion was launched. The aggressive war unleashed by Putin and the entire Western world is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also, perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia, with a bold letter Z crossing out all hopes and prospects for a prosperous free society in our country. He is right. There have also been reports of many rank-and-file Russian soldiers who oppose this war and refuse to fight. And there is a recent report of a Russian officer who became so disillusioned with the lies he had been told, he resigned in protest. His own words are telling: We had a radio receiver, and we could listen to the news. He said this to CNN, by the way. That's how I learned that shops are closing in Russia and the economy is collapsing. I felt guilty about this. But felt even more guilty because we came to Ukraine. And he should. This resignation is telling as Russians from every part of society are beginning to see this war for what it is-- unprovoked, tragic, shameful acts of aggression that have brought international condemnation and shame to Russia as a nation. I am confident this is the first of many acts of conscience by senior and junior Russian officials as they seek to restore some level of honor and dignity to their Nation. Kremlin officials and commandos on the ground should know that the world is watching and the war crimes are being recorded. It is not too late to say no to orders to attack and kill your innocent neighbors in Ukraine. Now, as I have mentioned over the last several weeks as we talked about that, there are a number of very important sanctions that are in place. We talked about trading sanctions; eliminating Russia's tax status; banking sanctions to crush the economy in Russia; the desperate need right now for us to focus more on energy and boycotting energy supplies because that is the single most important sanction that has not been put in place in the way it needs to be. It is funding the Putin war machine. Europe is making progress on this. In fact, by August, we are told, they will no longer be buying Russian coal, for example. But Russia is still getting from Europe $870 million a day in energy receipts, and that is funding the Putin war machine. Especially when Russia not only continues its onslaught on Ukrainian defensive combatants but on noncombatants, these sanctions must be tightened. And what they are doing is committing war crimes. I call on the International Criminal Court, which has announced an investigation already, to follow in Ukraine's footsteps and immediately begin a war crimes tribunal now--don't wait--because it can have a deterrent effect if it is done now. We continue to hear the stories every day, and the stories get worse and worse. I was glad to hear that a court in Kyiv began hearings against Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier to go on trial for alleged war crimes. He is accused of shooting and killing a 62-year-old civilian man in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy in late February just a few yards from his home. He pled guilty, and just yesterday--yesterday--he was sentenced to life in prison. Again, Russian officials and commanders need to see this. These war crimes are being committed, they are being prosecuted, and there will be consequences. Sadly, this one case we talked about is just a drop in the bucket. Ukraine's Prosecutor General has said that her office is currently investigating more than 10,000 alleged war crimes by Russian forces involving more than 600 suspects. It will take a vast amount of time and resources to hold these criminals to account, and the United States should help Ukraine in this regard. The supplemental spending package we talked about includes money to do just that--to investigate and document war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. My hope is that holding these Russians accountable will have that deterrent effect. Because of these terrible actions, I believe Russia also deserves to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. I believe the Senate should vote on that. In Chechnya, in Syria, and now in Ukraine, Russia has committed atrocities that reflect a complete disregard for the value of human life. It has terrorized its neighbors and committed clear war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Let me be clear. What the Russian military is doing in Ukraine is not just the product of individual undisciplined units; tacit approval for acts like these come from the top of the command chain. I have mentioned America's leadership stateside and what everyday Americans have done in light of this Russian aggression and their support for Ukraine. It is truly impressive. It is happening in my State of Ohio and around the country, the contributions in so many ways: the medical supplies that have been sent, the personal vanity kits that have been sent, the amount of food that has been voluntarily given through the World Central Kitchen and others. But tonight I want to close with a few thoughts on our leadership abroad as President Biden is wrapping up his first trip to Asia. First, I commend the President for taking this trip and for working with our allies. As China continues to advance its interest not only throughout the Indo-Pacific but around the globe, it is so important that the United States help lead freedom-loving countries in countering their malign actions too. I visited the region last month with some of my colleagues, and my takeaway was that our partners in the region have a newfound interest in working with us, allying with us, particularly with what is going on with regard to China's aggressive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region. I also think one of the best ways to push back against what China is doing and considering doing, particularly with regard to Taiwan, is for us to win in Ukraine. Russia being defeated in Ukraine will affect what happens in the Indo-Pacific region. China right now is entirely aligned with Russia. Their joint statement earlier this year says, as the invasion was being planned, ``Friendship between [our] two States has no limits, there are no `forbidden' areas of cooperation.'' We are now seeing China's attempt to extend their reach with a base in the Solomon Islands, as an example. We heard about this when we were over there. They have negotiated in secret a security agreement to allow Beijing to send military personnel to this new Pacific ally of theirs and base naval vessels potentially on the islands. This would be terrible for the region, particularly for Australia--their eastern border is only about 1,200 miles away from the Solomon Islands. In Ukraine, we have shown strong leadership. We must not stop now when it comes to our allies across the globe. It doesn't matter if it is Russia or China--we must be the beacon of strength for the free world and help bring people together. To do so, we must also start thinking about what it will take to aid Ukraine in the long term. I am not talking about nation building here, but I am talking about helping them in terms of this protracted conflict with Russia and ensuring that we do rebuild a democratic and free Ukraine. Thinking ahead in this fashion may seem premature to some, but I do believe it can save resources in the long run by thinking about how to plan for that now. In short, we should plan for the possibility of a longer conflict than we had originally anticipated. Again, our role in Ukraine is essential, but it is a role that combines us with so many other partners around the world. Again, over 40 countries are helping right now in terms of assistance to Ukraine. We are not the world's policeman, but we are kind of like the world's sheriff, and bringing in that posse of other freedom-loving countries is so critical for us to do, whether it is in the Indo-Pacific region or whether it is in regard to Ukraine. We have had tremendous success in terms of bringing people together to stand for freedom, to stand for democracy, and to stand for the rights of the Ukrainian people. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I come to the floor today for the 12th consecutive week while the Senate has been in session to talk about the illegal, unprovoked, and brutal assault on Ukraine being carried out by Russia. We started these discussions before this latest invasion even occurred; and, unfortunately, every week, as I talk about it, there are more and more examples of brutality as the Russians continue to bomb innocent civilians in Ukraine. Also, we have been able to talk about some progress that we have made in helping Ukraine, and that has been very effective in helping Ukraine help itself. This is a classic fight for freedom. The importance of our humanitarian aid, our weapons, and our material support have all been in that cause, and the impact cannot be overstated. Since February 24, when the invasion began, we have provided $13.6 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds for military, humanitarian, and economic aid for Ukraine. By the way, it has made a huge difference in keeping Ukraine from being totally overrun by Russia. You will remember that the Russian objective here, in looking at this map, was to take over the entire country. In starting with Kyiv, remember that they surrounded Kyiv at one point. Now they have been pushed out altogether. The Russians have now been forced to just focus here, in the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine, where there continues to be very fierce fighting. These darker red sections are sections that the Russians took back in 2014. The lighter red are the sections of Ukraine they are trying to take now. The blue, you can see here, is where the Ukrainians have made progress, including around Kharkiv, which is a major city here in Eastern Ukraine. You can see where there is quite a bit of blue--in fact, in one case, all the way to the Russian border where the Ukrainians have pushed back the Russians. So our support has made a difference. But that support--the $13.6 billion in aid--has now been depleted, and it is necessary for us to re-up, including in just providing basic munitions so that the Ukrainians can continue the fight with ammunition but also in providing heavier weapons because, down in this area, that is what is required. As the Russians use more and more artillery and other heavy weapons to try to push back the Ukrainians' positions, the Ukrainians must respond in kind. Without the support that we have provided, Russia would have destroyed a lot more of Ukraine; they would have killed a lot more innocent civilians; and they would have achieved a victory. It would have been damaging, of course, to Ukraine and its people but also damaging to us and our national interest and a safer world because, had they been successful, there would have been a much more dangerous and volatile world in its thinking that an authoritarian country could just come into a peaceful, democratic neighbor and take over another country. Again, the fighting continues, but we, along with so many of our allies--over 40 countries--over 40 countries--have stepped up to say: We are with you, Ukraine. You are an independent, sovereign country. You are an ally, and we want to support you. They have never asked for us to do the fighting for them, by the way, but they have asked for us to help them have the tools to be able to survive and to be able to push back against the brutal Russian assault. The administration has now submitted what is called a supplemental request for funding. The House passed it last week 368 to 57--strong bipartisan support. Last night and earlier today, we had the first of two procedural votes on the Senate's action on this same supplemental spending bill. The votes were 81 to 11 last night and 88 to 11 earlier today--again, strong bipartisan support for this funding. This package includes $40 billion--nearly $40 billion--for munitions, for weapons, for training to stop Russia. It also provides funds for humanitarian aid. Remember, there have been millions of refugees both internally and who have left the country. There are about 5 or 6 million refugees still out of the country and at least 7 or 8 million refugees inside the country. So this has been an unprecedented level of humanitarian aid that has been needed but also economic support to a country that has been devastated--literally flattened--in many areas by this Russian assault. There are also funds to support our troops, who are in the countries neighboring Ukraine, joining other NATO forces. That funding is also in here. Some of these troops came from Germany, and some came from the United States, but it is an effort to be sure that we are supporting and bolstering these other countries in the region--Romania, Slovakia, Poland, and the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia--to be sure that they are not going to be subject to the same attacks. Those preventive measures have been put in place, and that is also costly. Forty billion dollars is a lot of money, and we have to be sure that it is spent wisely and is not wasted. I am glad to see we were able to get some changes in the administration's request to task the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and USAID inspectors general--from all three of those entities--with the oversight of the spending and provide them with sufficient resources to do that. So these inspectors general from those three entities are there to ensure the money is properly spent. Additionally, the funds in this bill for urgent budget support to Ukraine's government will be subject to especially stringent oversight mechanisms. These funds will be placed in a separate, auditable account, and their use will be governed by a memorandum of understanding with Ukraine. The MOU will describe strict guardrails for transparency and accountability that will ensure that these funds are not diverted to corrupt interests but, instead, are used to help the Government of Ukraine provide for its people in their hour of need. I am glad that language was included and added to the supplemental. The supplemental bill also mandates that the use of these funds will be notified to Congress. I think this is very important. Most of our foreign assistance to other countries is subject to strict notification requirements like these. It is only appropriate these funds have a similar mechanism in place. If Congress is going to appropriate these large amounts of taxpayer dollars to support Ukraine, I think it is essential that we have sufficient congressional oversight. We have strong bipartisan support for this funding in the House and in the Senate but also the assurance that we will have effective oversight of our assistance to Ukraine. By the way, effective oversight also will require us to have a diplomatic presence in Ukraine--a permanent one-- to help ensure that these funds are spent properly--the military funds, the humanitarian funds, and the economic aid. I have been calling for the administration to reopen our Embassy in Kyiv, which is here--the capital city--for the past several weeks. I hope we do that as soon as possible. My understanding is that the team in Kyiv, which has been mostly in Poland and sometimes goes to Lviv, wants to get back to the capital. There are, probably, a couple dozen countries--I heard Israel moved their Embassy back today--that have already moved back to Kyiv. It is time for us to do so as well. We understand it is dangerous, and we respect the service of those Foreign Service Officers, but we have got to be sure that they are there to provide a clear line of communication with the Ukrainians and ensure that this $40 billion in funding is properly spent but also ensure that we are able to have a go-between at a high level, which is one reason we need to get our Ambassador over there to Ukraine as soon as possible. The good news is we had a good hearing with that Ambassador just last week, and my hope is that we can get her moving even later this week. With regard to the funding--the $40 billion--in helping, again, to continue to push back so that Russia doesn't turn the tide, that funding, I hope, will be sent this week. What you just heard from the majority leader is that he has set up a vote for Thursday, which would be a cloture vote. Then, hopefully, we will have the final vote that day, too. Cloture is the next procedural vote. Let's not slow this thing down on either side of the aisle. Let's get this done. I wish we had gotten it done last week, and we should have. Every day that we delay means we are putting at risk more Ukrainian civilians and putting at risk more of the Ukrainian military because they don't have the munitions for existing weapons, because they don't have the heavy weapons they need to be able to counter the Russians. So this is not a time for us to play partisan politics. It is a time for us to get this assistance to the President's desk. Hopefully, he will sign it immediately and begin to re-up this commitment we have made to help Ukraine defend itself. As you probably know, it took the constant urging from this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, to get the administration to finally begin to provide the level of lethal support that the Ukrainians have needed to survive this war against Russia. Some of us were pushing for more before this latest invasion as well, but we cannot afford to backslide now. It is really important that we continue to help them to be able to defend themselves. Again, we are not alone in this. There are many countries around the world, including, obviously, the other NATO allies who are also helping out. I understand there is only enough existing Presidential drawdown authority--that is the authority they are using for the munitions and the weapons--to do one more partial transfer of arms. So this is urgent to get it done now. This supplemental will fix that problem. It raises the Presidential cap to $11 billion in the drawdown authority. It also provides $6 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is a program that I co- wrote back into law in 2015. This money will fund training, equipment, and advisory efforts to boost Ukraine's combat capacities; to professionalize its military further; and to bring it up to NATO standards. That was very important to have them as prepared as they are. Over the past 7 years, it has helped turn Ukraine's army into a powerful, professional fighting force that has proven to be at least Russia's equal on the battlefield. The bravery and determination of these troops is the single most important weapon they have, but the training and the equipment and the munitions and so on are essential for them to be able to take that bravery and that perseverance and that commitment and to be able to be such an effective fighting force. Additionally, the supplemental includes $4 billion in Foreign Military Financing to provide Ukraine with the American-made weapons and equipment that its troops need. It also has $3.9 billion to support enhanced U.S. troop deployments to Europe, such as the 82nd Airborne, which is here in Poland. I got to see them when I was over in the region recently. They are doing an amazing job in ensuring that there is protection for Poland against the possibility that Poland could be dragged into this conflict, but it is also to help ensure that the arms transfers are occurring from countries all over the world. All of this vital funding will ensure that we can continue to support Ukraine and our other Eastern European allies who are threatened by Russian aggression. We just can't allow any gap in this support. We must not adjourn this week until we are finished with this. So the vote is supposed to be on Thursday, and I hope it is; but until we have the final passage of this measure and it goes to the President's desk, we cannot leave this week. In my view, Congress must stay in session. At this time in this war, it is also time for us to take a breath and hold the administration accountable for giving us a long-term strategy so that we in Congress can be a bigger part of the conversation about how to move forward. I think that is not unreasonable, given where we are. And a number of us, on a bipartisan basis, are calling for that. Give us a long-term strategy so we know where we are. I know there have been concerns that we have been spending a lot of money on weapons and equipment from our military stockpiles to Ukraine without adequately refilling our own supplies. But this supplemental funding bill--and one reason it is a higher number--fixes that. It provides $9 billion to replenish our stocks with Javelins, Stingers, howitzers, rifles, vehicles, and other equipment needed to keep America safe. So part of the funds we are providing here are for Ukraine, but really they are for updating our own stockpiles. That is good for our own military. I am also aware of a concern that some of our manufacturers cannot make these weapons fast enough for both the stockpiling for our weapons and providing weapons to Ukraine. This supplemental bill addresses that, too, providing $600 million to ease chokepoints in our industrial supply chain. That will ensure that we have the capacity to produce enough missiles to simultaneously help keep Ukrainians in the fight and keep our stockpiles full. Last week, at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I asked the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Karen Donfried, what the administration's definition of ``victory'' was, and she said: Well, ``that is for the Ukrainians to define.'' Well, I guess that is fair, but the Ukrainians have already defined what victory looks like for them. They want all of their territory back. It is their sovereign territory that Russia has already taken-- the darker red--and wants to take now in the lighter red and wants to go even farther. That is what the Ukrainians say victory looks like. Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said that ``victory for us in this war will be the liberation of the rest of our territories.'' On Saturday, the Foreign Ministers of the G7 countries--those are the biggest economies of the world except for China. Those are our allies in all of this. Our Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, was there, and he endorsed this view, saying in a statement that ``[w]e will never recognize borders that Russia has attempted to change by military aggression.'' I appreciate the Secretary of State saying that, and I hope the rest of the administration adopts that position. During recent testimony, LTG Scott Barrier of the Defense Intelligence Agency called the war situation a ``stalemate.'' While this is not optimal, it is giving the Ukrainian forces time to regroup forces in this area and to be able to train on some of the new Western weapons we and our allies have donated. Soon, more of our 155- millimeter ``M Triple 7'' howitzers, as an example, will be deployed to the frontlines. This will give the Ukrainians the capability to outrange the Russians, when they could sit back and use the artillery to push the Russians back without being in danger themselves. And when combined with surveillance, including surveillance drones, this will allow the Ukrainians to even the odds on the battlefield. That is all arriving now and beginning to come, and that is good news to report tonight. It is going to make a big difference. In fact, we have recently seen just how effective artillery can be in Ukraine. We just learned yesterday that last week, as a Russian battalion tactical group was attempting to cross a river in Ukraine, called the Siverskyi Donets River, Ukrainian artillerymen sighted them and opened fire. Over the next several minutes, under a Ukrainian bombardment, it is estimated that Russian forces suffered almost 500 casualties--including killed, wounded, and missing in action--and also lost almost 80 vehicles, including infantry fighting vehicles and T-72 main battle tanks. This map shows images of the actual bridge and what actually happened. Here is the attack. Here are some of those Russian tanks we talked about and other armored vehicles. Here is what is left of the bridge. Here are some more images of the road coming in and some of the vehicles that were destroyed. The pontoon bridge they had been using to cross the river right here, you can see, was totally destroyed, sending some vehicles plunging into the water below. This Russian advance was completely halted at immense cost. Again, it makes a difference if you have these weapons and you have the surveillance. You have the ability to do this. It was such a significant defeat for Russian forces that even the pro-Russian military bloggers--who have toed the Kremlin line for the war thus far--have now begun to publicly question the competency of the Russian military leadership on social media. This is precisely why we and other countries need to keep sending heavy weapons and ammunition, including artillery and better artillery, so the Ukrainians can continue to inflict defeats like this on the Russians and push them out of their territory. The Ukrainians are succeeding, first, because of their bravery, their tenacity, their skill but also because the United States and our allies are placing in their hands the tools they need to succeed. Let's not forget that President Putin said he launched this war because Ukraine had NATO aspirations and that a NATO country on their border was a threat. I think he thought that this would be intimidating to NATO and would split NATO. Now, because of the invasion, Finland and Sweden have applied for NATO membership. President Putin thought it would split NATO; instead, NATO is actually getting stronger. America and the world should recognize this is a major shift in the power structure of Europe. This is a big deal. Finland, Sweden--Sweden has been traditionally neutral--and other European countries now see clearly the threat posed by Vladimir Putin and his desire to recreate the Soviet Socialist Republic. Earlier in the conflict, Putin threatened both Finland and Sweden with ``grave consequences'' if they sought to join NATO. Does this sound familiar? It is the same thing he said about Ukraine. Remember, Finland shares a border with Russia, about 810 miles. To the Finns, the threat of Russian troops is very real, and it is on their border. Finland is not dependent on Russia, as some other nations are. In fact, they barely get 5 percent of their energy from Russia, and they are working to even cut that amount down further. Good for them. They are not afraid of Russia. They would rather see the benefits of a defensive alliance based on common, shared democratic values. That is what NATO is about. It is not offensive; it is defensive. And that is what Finland and Sweden both see. We should be encouraged by Finland's increased military spending, which they just increased to about 2 percent of their GDP. That is the NATO target of 2 percent. I commend Finland for that. They need to set an example for other members of the alliance. They also just augmented their air force, and they are among Europe's most effective and largest Armed Forces per capita. They are able to mobilize an army of 280,000 troops and 600,000 reservists. Sweden also increased its military spending this year for the biggest increase in 70 years. This is all positive because it puts actions behind the words and sends the message to Russia, to Vladimir Putin, that freedom-loving countries are not going to stand idly by while allies are invaded or intimidated. All we want to do is live in peace, but we are not going to stand by while this aggression occurs. The Senate has a role to play here because these two countries, Sweden and Finland, will be coming before the U.S. Senate to be confirmed as members of NATO. We should do so as soon as we possibly can. In addition, the administration should press other countries to approve this very quickly. I heard today that the Turks may have some concerns about it based on other issues. I hope no country stands in the way of this. This will make NATO a more effective fighting force. It would augment NATO's ability to be able to be an effective, again, peaceful, defensive alliance. In addition, the administration should press the world to approve NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, a move that would strengthen the security structure and posture for free nations, free nations around the globe. I have talked about a variety of sanctions in my remarks over these past 12 weeks, and I won't go over all those sanctions. There are trading sanctions. They are eliminating Russia's preferred tax status. There are banking sanctions and, of course, energy. Europe, unfortunately, is continuing to buy Russian gas and oil. They say they are going to stop buying Russian coal by August. I hope that is true. But they now send about $870 million a day to Russia. Think about that, $870 million a day to help fund the war machine. One reason Russia's economy hasn't totally collapsed is because of that--because it is still getting a lot of receipts for energy not just from China and India, which we all know about and we regret, but also from the EU countries that are way too dependent on Russia. We are not as dependent, so it is easy for us to cut off their oil and gas supplies, which we did, to our credit. But we need to back up those European nations now with some of our own. We have plenty of gas in this country; as an example, natural gas that can back up what Russia is providing now, and we have a loose agreement to do so. We had to tighten that agreement and ensure we are not sending these millions--hundreds of millions of dollars every day to Vladimir Putin to fund his war machine, especially when Russia not only continues its onslaught on Ukrainian defensive combatants but also on noncombatants. We need to act. What they are doing is committing war crimes. We have all seen them. We all know that. I have called on the International Criminal Court, which, by the way, has announced an investigation to follow in Ukraine's footsteps and take the next step to begin an actual war crimes tribunal. We know enough now. We continue to hear about this every day. And every day we don't act, the stories get worse. I think this could be a deterrent if we moved forward more aggressively. Six million Ukrainians have been forced out of their country. And according to UNICEF, thousands of innocent Ukrainians have been killed, including hundreds of children. Since February 24, Russian troops have engaged in rape and other forms of sexual violence across Ukraine. These victims--Ukrainian women and girls--have been cruelly targeted. We have a moral obligation to step up here. The whole world does. I was glad to hear that a court in Kyiv began hearings last Friday on a case against Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier to go on trial for alleged war crimes. He is accused of shooting and killing a 62-year-old civilian man in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy in late February, just a few yards from his home. Apparently, this has all been recorded. But this is just a drop in the bucket. Ukraine's prosecutor has said her office is currently investigating more than 10,000 alleged war crimes by Russian forces involving more than 600 suspects. It will take a vast amount of time and resources to hold these criminals to account, and the United States should help Ukraine in this regard. I am glad that the supplemental funding bill before the Senate right now includes funding to do just that: $400 million to investigate and document war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. My hope is that holding these Russians accountable will have this strong deterrent effect. To Russian commanders and to Kremlin officials who are backing this brutal and unjustified war, the message is very simple: The world is watching. They are watching you. The world is watching for war crimes, and they are being recorded. You have a choice: Say no to the orders to attack and kill your innocent neighbors in Ukraine, your neighbors who only want to live in peace. By the way, there is a special designation in U.S. law for countries that provide support for international terrorism. They are called state sponsors of terrorism. In my view, Russia has now earned that notorious designation. We should vote on that here in the U.S. Senate and further isolate Russia from the community of nations. The Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, along with three of our other colleagues, went to Kyiv over the weekend to meet with President Zelenskyy. In that meeting, he reports that the issue of Russia being designated as a state sponsor of terrorism came up. And he agreed, as the Republican leader here in the U.S. Senate, that we should move forward with that legislation. Speaker Pelosi has also been to Kyiv for the delegation. I am glad they both went, and I hope both of them will agree on that designation, which is something that President Zelenskyy has asked for, and also, again, to ensure that we not only provide this aid package as soon as possible this week but we continue to provide whatever help is necessary for our allies in Ukraine. I close tonight with a few thoughts on our leadership not abroad, but here at home, and not the leadership of the U.S. Government, but instead the leadership of the people of America because it is not just the U.S. Government that is supporting Ukraine in its hour of need. Since this terrible conflict began, everyday Americans across the country have stepped up to provide much needed assistance--humanitarian assistance, economic aid. The Ukrainian defenders, the refugees, and the first responders are deeply grateful. In March, in Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine sent out a request for surplus or expired personal protective gear to provide to Ukrainian territorial defense forces that had asked for them. I am proud to say that Ohio answered that call. Altogether, more than two dozen law enforcement agencies across Ohio have donated 2,000 pieces of personal protective gear, including 71 vest carriers, 45 helmets, and 1,880 pieces of body armor. With the help of the Fund to Aid Ukraine, a nonprofit located in Parma, OH, this badly needed equipment will soon make its way into the hands of brave Ukrainian defenders who are fighting for their lives as they endure Russia's brutal onslaught. This organization has now given 24 pallets of supplies and over 7 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine as well. I am grateful to them and for all the law enforcement agencies that sacrificed their time and resources to organize this effort to provide personal protective gear. In addition, MedWish International in Cleveland, which is a highly effective nonprofit I met with last month, has partnered with United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio, headed by Marta Liscynesky, to provide individual first aid kits and other medical equipment to Ukrainian first responders, defenders, and civilians. And Cleveland-based KOACORE has delivered 17,000 individual first aid kits to the frontlines. With this donation, Ukrainian first responders running into the rubble of schools, apartment buildings, and homes will be able to save more lives. When I was on the Polish-Ukrainian border in March, I saw Marta, who set up United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio, and also another Ohio friend, Andy Futey, who is president of the Ukrainian World Congress; and I got to see them in action delivering these humanitarian supplies to refugees and helping to organize the effort. I saw how this affected refugees at the border. They came up to us with tears in their eyes, almost all women and children--the men had been left behind to fight--and they pleaded with us to continue the help. They pleaded with us to, as they said, ``close the skies,'' to stop these bombs--just constant bombardment of their families. They talked about how their homes had been destroyed, how members of their families had been killed or maimed, how the unspeakable crimes being committed by these Russian soldiers were something that many of these families had endured. We didn't have all the answers. We haven't closed the skies. But we did say, ``The American people are with you,'' and talked about some of these incredibly generous Americans who have stepped forward. As the Russian forces intentionally target these Ukrainian civilians to spread fear and panic, this display of generosity from the people of Ohio and the people of every State represented here in this body reassures these Ukrainians that we have their back, that America--not just our American Government but America, the people of America--care. I am proud of that. I am proud of how people have given their time and resources to help those in need. In Cincinnati, my hometown, we organized a fundraiser last week for what is called World Central Kitchen and the good work that they are doing all throughout Ukraine and in the border areas. This fundraiser went to support World Central Kitchen's work and the Kharkiv sister city efforts. Cincinnati and Kharkiv are sister cities. I was involved in that group a few decades ago, and I remember that, at the time, we were so proud to be a sister city to Kharkiv because it resembled Cincinnati in many ways--a beautiful city with a river running through it, like the Ohio River runs through Cincinnati. Today, Kharkiv has been nearly flattened. It has been nearly totally destroyed. But, as we talked about in this map, look at what is happening. They are pushing the Russians back from Kharkiv. And they will rebuild, and it will be beautiful again. I saw the good work that World Central Kitchen does when I was on the Ukrainian-Polish border. Chef Jose Andres, here from Washington, DC, and his brainchild, World Central Kitchen, is doing amazing work. I volunteered with a few colleagues, serving food to refugees at one of his 60 popup restaurants in the border regions. There are dozens more in Ukraine itself. There is much more to be done to help Ukraine get through this, to help them defend themselves, to help them push back the Russians, to help them deal with the humanitarian crisis, to help them rebuild, to help them survive this brutal Russian onslaught and rebuild their homeland, which they love so much. And we are inspired to do more, both because this is in our national security interest--Vladimir Putin's victory is our loss--and because we are inspired by the resiliency and fortitude of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian people. They have truly shown the rest of the world what bravery and patriotism is all about. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk again about the illegal, totally unjustified, unprovoked, and brutal attack on Ukraine by Russian forces. This is the 11th week in a row I have come to the Chamber to talk about this because I think it is really important that the American people know what is going on over there and that we rally to the defense of our allies in Ukraine. This week is the 77th anniversary of what is called V-E Day. That is the day the war in Europe ended--World War II--when the United States finally led the allies to defeat the tyranny of Nazi Germany and liberated millions of people. Then, in the Cold War, we led the world again to defeat the encroachment of Soviet communism on Eastern Europe. Again, millions of people were liberated, including Ukrainians. We cannot forget this because, as we look at Ukraine, what do we see? The same thing--people who yearn to be free. That is all they want is to live in freedom in their own sovereign, independent country. Once again, the United States and our allies in Europe are standing with these Europeans in fighting to hold onto their freedom in the face of this illegal, unprovoked, and brutal attack. When Vladimir Putin spoke at ceremonies in Russia this week to commemorate the same V-E Day, he used it to justify Russia's invasion, saying: The danger was growing day by day, [so] Russia [gave] a preemptive response to an aggression. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Ukrainians were never the aggressors. The Ukrainians just want to live in peace with their neighbors, including with Russia. Here is a map of Ukraine today, and this is what has been going on. In the dark red, what you see here is what the Russians took in 2014--the year that Ukraine decided definitively they wanted to turn to the West to be a free, democratic country. Russia responded with this: taking over Crimea and taking over the Luhansk and Donetsk parts of the Donbas. The light red is what they have taken in this latest invasion, and what they intend to take, according to their military generals who have spoken, is a much bigger area here. The blue, of course, is where the Ukrainians have pushed back, where they have gone on the counteroffensive. They have actually pushed the Russians out around Kyiv, around the northern part of the country and other parts and, right now, as you can see, in various parts of the Donbas region, including around this town of Kharkiv. Now, Kharkiv is an interesting situation. It is actually a sister city to Cincinnati, OH, my hometown, and I was on the Sister City Committee decades ago when we developed that relationship. They have a beautiful river running through the city. It was and will be, in the future, a beautiful city; but now, as these Ukrainians are in the fight of their lives just to keep their democracy, you see what is happening in Kharkiv. The Ukrainians are beginning to make progress both to the north of Kharkiv and here to the south and to the east. It is possible that the Ukrainians could actually push the Russians back far enough so that the city itself would be out of artillery range of the Russians. That would be great because, right now, the people of Kharkiv, like so many other people in places like Mariupol, of course, are being attacked by the Russians with artillery every night, every day. So, if they could get the Russian forces pushed back beyond that period, they could get relief services in to the civilians--food, water--that were previously denied by the Russians. I think it might also force the Russians to make a decision. They would have to decide between addressing Ukraine's counteroffensive near Kharkiv--that is here--and expanding their forces over here, which they have said they want to do. I think if they do that--expand their forces--they are going to be risking their communications and supply lines here being cut off by the Ukrainians. So we will see what happens, but this is a crucial time in the battle. We are at a turning point. I guess that is really my point. We are being asked to look at legislation that has been sent to us by the administration--called the Ukraine Supplemental Funding bill--at a time when there is a crucial battle going on and when there could be a turning point in this broader war. Last week, I spoke with the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova. I will be speaking to her again tomorrow morning. She made the point that the Presidential drawdown authority-- that is the funding they are currently using from the United States--is just about depleted. It was about $3.3 billion in military aid that the President had, with the authority given to him by Congress, to draw down some of our resources to be able to provide to Ukraine. As of last week, she told me that $3.3 billion is just about depleted; therefore, a new authority is critically needed right now. You don't want to have a gap--particularly with regard to munitions-- in being able to ensure that they have the more effective weaponry--the heavy weaponry--that they are now using in places like this and here and here and can continue to have the ammunition that is needed to be able to continue the fight. I also spoke late last week to Bridget Brink. She is the current Ambassador to Slovakia and is a seasoned Foreign Service professional whom the Biden administration has now nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador here in Ukraine. We haven't had an Ambassador there for well over a year, maybe 2 years. I have been asking the Biden administration--pushing the Biden administration--to send an Ambassador to Ukraine for over a year. I did the same with the Trump administration when we didn't have an Ambassador there for a while and even with the Obama administration to try to ensure we had a representative. Why? It is so important to have an Ambassador there. You need somebody at the highest level to be able to have the Ukrainian officials have someone they can work with directly who can answer questions, make commitments, be someone who is authorized by the President. It is also helpful to have that information on the ground being relayed straight back to our teams here in Washington. At least 17 other countries, by the way, have returned their diplomatic personnel to the capital, Kyiv. We have not. We are, apparently, going to do that soon. I hope so. I hope so. I know that the Ambassador nominee would like to go back to Kyiv. I know that a lot of members of the team would because I have met with them in Poland. They are over here in Poland now, for the most part, and are going into Lviv sometimes; but we need to get back to Kyiv. In terms of what is going on in the battlefield, let's talk a little more about that and of the importance of the weapons and the materiel support that we have already provided and, therefore, what we must continue to provide. Since February 24, when this latest Russian invasion began, we have now provided $13.6 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. This latest request for funding from the White House is for $33 billion, so it is for even more. There were reports that this latest supplemental would be tied to other things, particularly to the COVID funding that the administration is also eager to get passed. I was strongly against that because, when you tie it up with other things, it inevitably slows it down, and this is absolutely urgent. I was really pleased to see that about an hour and a half ago, President Biden issued a statement saying he now supports separating the Ukraine funding from the COVID funding. I commend him for that. It is good news. Again, we have seen so many times around here when you combine things, it slows everything down, and it creates a political football that goes back and forth. This is desperately needed assistance that is going to determine whether some Ukrainian civilians and some of their military forces live or die, because this aid is so critical to their success. After Vladimir Putin's claim of success during this week's V-E ceremony--as we talked about--in Moscow, it is very likely, in my view, that he is now going to feel the need to call up an even fuller mobilization of his military and engage in even more brutality--if that is possible--against the innocent civilians in Ukraine. So it is all the more reason for us to pass this latest spending request now and get this military equipment to the Ukrainians who need it so desperately. Some Americans may wonder if we can make a difference in protecting freedom in Ukraine without directly engaging the American military or engaging with Russia. I would say we can, and I would say we have made a difference. The U.S. and our NATO allies and other allies around the world have already made a positive contribution to Ukraine's success in pushing back against the Russians--a much larger army with more weapons of every kind. Prior to the latest invasion on February 24, the United States and some allies shipped these Javelin anti-tank weapons, Stinger anti-air missiles, and other small arms and munitions to Ukraine to be able to counter what we thought was going to happen and did, which was Russian battalion tactical groups coming into the country. It was effective. It was effective in Kyiv, and it was effective in other areas of Ukraine to be able to push back as you can see. These Russian units were essentially light-mechanized formations which contained armored anti- infantry vehicles and medium to heavy tanks, along with infantry and light artillery. The first 2 months of the war have proven that the Russians were not very effective with their coordination of these groups, and because of their tactical incompetence, they were largely defeated up here by a more proficient and a more effective Ukrainian military. The mobility at the tactical level among the Ukrainian Armed Forces is at the core of the NATO doctrine in something called ``combined arms warfare''--essentially the coordinated employment of the tanks, artillery, and infantry to defend or seize territory. Since 2014, when Ukraine turned away from tyranny and toward the West and Russia immediately invaded, the threat of a larger scale invasion was clear, so Ukraine's forces began to train and learn alongside U.S. troops and other NATO allies. Again, we worked with them to transition from a Soviet-style military to one that emphasized the initiative of noncommissioned officers and mission-style orders and better coordination between these groups. Thanks to an extensive effort by our military and that of our NATO allies, the Ukrainians were able to build a military that was more proficient and technically agile. It was able not only to withstand the initial Russian onslaught but to defeat Russian forces, including around Kyiv. In the past month, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have repositioned to the east, taking with them that same tactic, that same coordination, and have provided tactical reconnaissance through drones and have used highly accurate artillery. In doing so, they have thwarted Russian attempts to gain more ground here in the East. Of course, nothing substitutes for the bravery and grit of the Ukrainian people and particularly of the Ukrainian soldiers-- professional and civilian soldiers alike. They are defending their homeland fiercely, and that is the single most important element to their success. But we also owe a debt of gratitude to our troops who trained Ukrainians, many of whom are National Guardsmen, perhaps from your State, and also our British, Canadian, and other NATO partners who helped the Ukrainian military become the effective battlefield force we see today. I say this because we need to know that the help that we are giving does make a difference, not just in terms of the weapons but also the training. The training of Armed Forces and equipping them was done through what is called the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, USAI. It was created back in 2016. I actually modified a McCain amendment to create this new initiative. Since 2016, it has provided $1.6 billion for training, equipment, advisory efforts, command and control functions, cyber defense, and strategic communications. Most importantly, it helped teach Ukraine mobility on the battlefield--again, a model of warfare that was superior to what Russia had. That first phase of our support included the Javelins and the Stingers we talked about, then a heavy focus on organizing the transfer of existing stocks of Soviet-era weaponry in Eastern Europe--places like Poland or Slovakia--to Ukraine. But these Soviet-era weapons and munitions were always finite, and the war has exhausted a lot of those supplies coming from these other countries in the region. So this Ukraine supplemental request from the White House is understandably a larger amount because Ukraine now requires heavier weaponry and ones that are NATO standard. So more funds are needed to be able to transport these larger weapons at greater distances and to train Ukrainian forces on these weapons and to continue to replenish them with ammunition. So it is more of a traditional battlefield down here requiring that heavier weapon, more expensive weaponry, and now, again, NATO-standard weaponry. While the United States and our allies are providing significant resources to this cause, the costs imposed on Russia are much greater. What do I mean by that? Russia has now committed more than 70 percent of its total combat power to Ukraine, and much of that has been degraded and continues to be degraded. This raises an interesting point: Let's remember that Russia directly threatened military intervention against a number of our NATO allies, including the Baltics, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, including Poland, even the UK, and, more recently, two countries that are not NATO but are our allies, Finland and Sweden. Other allies that they have threatened, we are legally obligated to protect if they are in NATO, under NATO article 5. So downgrading Russia's Army in Ukraine and supporting Ukraine's Armed Forces is a pretty effective way to ensure that Russia does not have the ability to attack NATO and instantly begin a direct U.S.-Russian confrontation-- something we have wanted to avoid. And speaking of NATO, it is encouraging, again, that Sweden and Finland are refusing to be intimidated by these Russian threats and are looking to join the alliance instead. At the end of last week, Finland already conducted military exercises with NATO military units from the United States, the UK, Estonia, and Latvia. I am proud that we are supporting this effort militarily. And Finland is now upgrading its air force. That is good. The Senate should immediately confirm NATO membership of both of these nations as soon as it comes before us. It is important to note that it is not just the U.S. Government and our allied governments that are supporting Ukraine in its hour of need. Since this terrible conflict began, everyday Americans across the country have stepped up to provide much needed assistance to Ukrainian defenders, refugees, and first responders. In March, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, sent out a request for surplus or expired personal protective gear to provide to Ukrainian territorial defense forces. They said they needed more protective gear, and we responded. I am proud to say that Ohio answered that call. All together, more than two dozen law enforcement agencies across my home State have donated almost 2,000 pieces of personal protective gear, 71 vest carriers, 45 helmets, and over 1,800 pieces of body armor. With the help of the Fund to Aid Ukraine--a nonprofit based in Parma, OH-- this badly needed equipment will soon make its way into the hands of brave Ukrainian defenders who are fighting for their lives as they endure Russia's brutal assault. This organization has also given 24 pallets of supplies, over 7 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine. I am grateful for everyone who stepped forward, especially to those law enforcement agencies that have stepped forward to help those Ukrainian law enforcement entities and first responders and territorial defense troops who need better protection. And this is happening all over America. Additionally, there is a group in Cleveland called MedWish. They are amazing. I got to go visit them last month. They are a very effective nonprofit that has worked for years to provide medical supplies, hospital supplies to countries that have suffered, say, from a natural disaster but also in the case of Ukraine, of course, from the war. They have partnered with a group called the United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio, headed by my friend Marta Liscynesky, to provide individual first aid kits and other medical equipment to Ukrainian first responders, defenders, and civilians. And Cleveland-based KOACORE is delivering 17,000 individual first aid kits to the frontlines. This is a company in Cleveland that is a safety management company so it is a good role for them. They are doing it, again, as volunteers and donating this. When I was on the Polish-Ukrainian border in March, I saw Marta and another Ohio friend Andy Futey, who is president of the Ukrainian World Congress, in action, organizing some of this equipment that was coming into Ukraine and particularly helping our refugees coming from Ukraine. One of my own staffers, Josh Prest, recently volunteered to transport some of this assistance to Europe. He checked an extra bag on his flight so he could carry more individual first aid kits, and he delivered them as well. Again, there are thousands and thousands of Americans doing these sorts of things. As Russian forces intentionally target Ukrainian civilians to spread fear and panic, this display of generosity from the people of Ohio will reassure Ukrainians that America has their back. With this donation, Ukrainian first responders running into the rubble of schools, apartment buildings, and homes will be able to save more lives. I am very proud of how the people of the great State of Ohio have given their time and resources to help those in need. Tonight in Cincinnati, OH--my hometown--we have organized a fundraiser, under the leadership of Susie DeYoung, for what is called World Central Kitchen. They do great work all around the globe, including here in the United States, in response to natural disasters, working with FEMA. But they are doing amazing things in Ukraine. The funding for the fundraiser tonight is going to go to World Central Kitchen and also to the Kharkiv sister city efforts I talked about earlier. I have seen the good work that DC Chef Jose Andres, and his brainchild World Central Kitchen, is doing when I volunteered, along with a few of my colleagues, at a World Central Kitchen location, serving food to refugees--one of his 60 popup kitchens--in the border areas between Ukraine and its neighbors. Tonight, in Cincinnati, chefs from our entire Cincinnati region are volunteering their skills and some great food for the people of Ukraine. All of these donations are a reflection of how the American people are united in support of Ukraine. On the sanctions front, I hope we can focus more of our attention on energy. I believe the top priority of all Ukraine's allies should be cutting off the funding of Putin's war machine. The single largest source of that funding is, of course, their energy exports from Russia. Europe relies on these energy exports from Russia. They purchase approximately $870 million of energy from Russia every single day. That is one reason the ruble has regained some of its value--because these energy receipts are coming in to fund Russia's government and fund the war machine. For Europe, it is about $22 million worth of coal every day, $415 million worth of oil, and $433 million in natural gas every day, again, funding Russia's brutal assault on Ukraine. I have talked about this on the floor before, but Putin has long used energy as a weapon, and we have got to put an end to it. I applaud those European nations that have recently taken steps to find alternative sources of energy and transition away from Russia. For example, recently, Italy, which relies on Russia for approximately 40 percent of its natural gas, is actively working to secure new natural gas contracts with African nations. And in the last month, Lithuania became the first European country to halt the import of all Russian gas. The EU took its first tangible step away from Russian fuels last month when it finally agreed to ban coal imports from Russia. This is expected to take effect in August. As part of their efforts to mark V-E Day on Sunday, the G7, which includes, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada, and the United States, pledged to ban Russian oil. Well, that is good. But let's be sure that this pledge is converted into reality. We have seen agreements before with the EU on this topic, and yet we need to be sure we see actual action. A total embargo on all energy--oil, gas, natural gas, coal--is needed. The United States has the energy resources, especially liquefied natural gas, to be able to substitute for what Russia has been sending to Europe. To be there for Europe, the United States must immediately expand our oil and natural gas production here and build the associated energy infrastructure that will allow our hydrocarbons to reach the global market. Reports are showing that last month in April, European LNG import terminals--so bringing liquefied natural gas into Europe from the United States but also from the Mideast--took in a record amount, hitting their highest level since the start of the pandemic. We have got to continue to build on that trajectory. We have already got a general agreement in place with the EU to do that, but certain countries have blocked its implementation. More generally, we have got to support all of our domestic producers here in the United States through a robust ``all of the above'' energy policy that includes renewables, fossil fuels, carbon capture technologies, nuclear power, hydropower, hydrogen, and energy efficiency--all of the above. Instead of making it more difficult for domestic energy production, I urge the Biden administration to reject their proposed tax increase on energy production proposed in the President's budget; stop restricting new leases on Federal lands and waters for oil and gas production and help with the permitting of the needed infrastructure instead of proposals like rewriting the definitions of the waters of the United States, which would add significant time and complexity to permitting new energy projects. This is a time when we need to focus on how to help Europe get away from their dependency on Russian energy in order to stop fueling the Putin war machine. I have mentioned sanctions over these past 11 weeks, from trading sanctions and eliminating Russia's preferred tax status with the United States to banking sanctions to crush President Putin's financial services economy. But we should and must go further, especially when Russia not only continues its onslaught on Ukrainians' defensive combatants but on their noncombatants--on civilians. What they are doing, in so many instances, is clearly war crimes. I call on the International Criminal Court, again, which has announced an investigation, to follow in Ukraine's footsteps and immediately begin a War Crimes Tribunal. The evidence of war crimes is now clear. There should be no delay. Earlier, I spoke about the investment the United States has made since 2015 in training Ukrainian troops and modernizing its military. We now know that investment is paying off because Ukrainian troops have outmaneuvered and pushed back on Russia's military. Speaking to the current Russian invasion, one Ukrainian officer told us: The biggest mistake the Russians made was giving us eight years to prepare for this. Thank goodness we had that time. We could have used it even more productively, but we were able to make great progress. I close tonight on this because it shows why U.S. leadership around the world is so important: Without the bipartisan action of Congress and multiple administrations--including the Obama, Trump, and now Biden administrations--what Ukraine is achieving would not have been possible. That is why it is so important we take up this Ukrainian supplemental immediately, this week, and pass it into law. We have made a difference. We can continue to make a difference, but we are at a crucial point in this war. So much more needs to be done. But do you know what? I am hopeful. I am hopeful because of what we have all seen. Over the past 2 months, the resiliency and fortitude of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian people, it has shown the world what patriotism and bravery truly is. I yield back my time.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today once again to talk about what is happening in Ukraine. This is the 10th time in the 10 weeks of session since before the invasion started that I have come to the floor to talk about the atrocities being committed in Ukraine by this brutal and unprovoked invasion from Russia and to talk about more effective ways for us to help the Ukrainian people. I just spoke to the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova. She started by thanking me on behalf of the Ukrainian people--really, thanking the American people--and saying that they appreciate all of the help, not just the funding and the weapons but the moral support that the people of Ukraine feel from the people of the United States of America. That made me proud. She also talked about the desperate need right now to provide Ukrainian soldiers with the heavy weapons they need to confront the new fight in Ukraine--the need to confront Russia as Vladimir Putin continues his brutal campaign to kill Ukrainian citizens, to flatten Ukrainian cities. Just today, Lviv, which is way over here in western Ukraine, was attacked again. So Russia says they are going to focus over here. Once again, they are lobbing missiles into Lviv. Once again, they have attacked Odesa in the south, hoping, I suppose, to flatten Odesa as well as they have done with Mariupol and kill there somewhere between 20 and 25,000 innocent civilians, according to the latest reports we have. Ukraine has been an independent and sovereign country since 1991. They are not part of Russia. In 2014, the people of Ukraine made a very conscious choice to turn to the West, to get out from under the Russian thumb altogether. They wanted freedom and democracy, to move away from tyranny and corruption. They wanted to be like us here in America. That is one reason so much of the free world has rallied around Ukraine-- because this is about a country that is seeking freedom, free enterprise, the ability to gather freely, free speech. I was an election observer here in 2014 right after they made this decision, and we saw a fair election, where a President was elected by the people with huge voter turnout. Again, that is one reason we feel this connection to Ukraine, as does the rest of the free world. Ukraine's armed forces continue to perform well, but as this map shows, the fight is fierce right now. The dark red here is Ukrainian territory that was taken by Russia back in 2014. This includes Crimea. It includes Donetsk, Luhansk. The lighter red is the Ukrainian territory that Russia has seized during this latest invasion during this war. And the light-blue area is where Ukrainian troops have effectively countered the Russian offensives and pushed Russian forces out of territory. Ukraine won a decisive battle here, as an example, in Kyiv. You can see where they pushed the Russian forces out. The Kremlin, at that time, had as a strategic objective, seizing Kyiv, which is the capital of Ukraine, and also other major cities all around the country. They wanted to force the government--the democratically elected government--out to overthrow the government of President Zelenskyy. Instead, because of effective Ukrainian resistance, Russia has been forced to settle for these more limited objectives, even as they continue to bomb cities all around Ukraine. They now want to consolidate the Donbas region and create a land bridge from Crimea up to Transnistria. They want to cut off one of the world's greatest exporters--Ukraine--from any access to the city, to make them landlocked so they cannot have an effective economy. Our goal must be to stop Russia from achieving its invasion goals and push them out of the territory of this free and independent country, Ukraine, our ally. This is a very dangerous point in this battle. While the Russians have made incremental gains in the east, they have not achieved the decisive breakthrough that they want, thanks to the toughness and tenacity of the Ukrainian forces. But it is a tough fight, and the Ukrainians are outgunned. We must do all we can to keep Russia from a breakthrough until heavier weapons pledged by the United States and other allied nations can reinforce Ukrainian positions--our howitzers, as an example. Artillery is starting to arrive but only starting. My hope is that by reinforcing Ukrainian positions with these heavier weapons, that will allow Ukraine not just to defend itself but to be able to roll back this Russian invasion and reclaim this territory. Late last week, I was pleased that the Biden administration formerly requested emergency supplemental funding that will provide needed military, humanitarian, and economic aid for Ukraine. This proposal, by the way, includes $6 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative--a bipartisan initiative I have long spearheaded. Funding for this initiative is used to train, equip, and provide support for the Ukrainian Government and military. It was crucial to helping Ukraine prepare for the current fight, and it is crucial now. As the President has requested, there is also drawdown authority in this legislation. Now, that is what the President is currently using to provide the howitzers I talked about and other military assistance. There is $5 billion of additional Presidential drawdown authority in this request. The existing Presidential drawdown authority has been expended. I just checked with the Ambassador again just before making this speech. She indicates that out of the $3.3 billion that was in the previous Presidential drawdown authority to provide weapons to Ukraine, there is roughly $150 million left. In other words, they need this supplemental spending package now. It cannot wait, not at this crucial time in the battle. I am encouraged by the administration's request for military assistance because I think--assuming we approve it and get this done quickly--it will send a very important message to the world and, most importantly, to Vladimir Putin, that America is in this fight for the long haul. The humanitarian aid is also desperately needed to complement the remarkable work that is being done in Ukraine by so many great religious and nonprofit groups. Some of you know Samaritan's Purse, as an example. Last night, Jose Andres, who is the founder of what is called the World Central Kitchen, told me that they have now provided 18 million meals to Ukrainian refugees both in-country and out of country, and they have 12,000 volunteers that have been engaged to do this. They are not asking for money from American taxpayers, but they are providing incredible help, so many of these great groups. I am also encouraged that the administration heeded our bipartisan calls and appointed a Ukraine military assistance coordinator, LTG Terry Wolff. This followed a letter that I sent with Senators Shaheen, Wicker, and Durbin, with the goal of cutting through the redtape to ensure the right weapons get to Ukraine and they get there quickly. When I asked Secretary Blinken last week who Lieutenant General Wolff would be reporting to as the coordinator of the military assistance in order to make this whole process work more smoothly and help the Ukrainians more, he was uncertain. I will state today that I hope that the coordinator, Lieutenant General Wolff, will be reporting directly to the Commander in Chief. Why? Because there are so many Agencies and Departments involved, and the whole idea is to have one person who has the President's ear who is able to get stuff done quickly, without the bureaucracy. And I know President Biden believes that we ought to get this military equipment and other assistance to Ukraine immediately. In the context of this significant additional funding request for Ukraine to be able to defend itself, it is important to note that they are not just relying on us. We are not the only country providing military assistance to Ukraine. In the past few weeks, we have seen allies and nations in Europe and around the world come together and increase their military aid, and I commend them for that. Last Thursday, after weeks of debate, I was very pleased to see that the German Bundestag, which is their Parliament, voted overwhelmingly in favor--586 to 100--of sending heavy weapons to Ukraine. This is a breakthrough for Germany. They have now woken up to the serious threat that Russia poses to European security, and the Germans are now assuming more responsibility for defense of their own backyard. Good for them. We need them. Additionally, the Polish Government has now transferred even more Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukraine--again, heavy equipment they need in the Donbas. Slovakia has sent S-300 air defense systems. Our great allies in the United Kingdom have been tremendous supporters of Ukraine since before the invasion, including sending anti-tank and anti-air weapons that have been used to devastating effect on the battlefield. They have sent humanitarian aid and have recently sent Saxon armored vehicles. The Netherlands have also been very helpful by sending Stinger anti- air missiles that help Ukraine contest the sky against Russian superior air power. Turkey has provided armed drones that have proven deadly effective at neutralizing Russian tanks, vehicles, and surface ships. I commend Turkey for that. Even on the other side of the globe, democracies are stepping up and providing military aid to Ukraine, including Bushmaster armored vehicles from Australia, bulletproof vests from Japan, and other military equipment from South Korea. The list of those countries that are providing lethal assistance or humanitarian aid is now over 40 and grows every day as freedom-loving nations everywhere see what is happening here. They see President Putin's actions for what they are--an assault on freedom and democracy, a brutal assault. Again, the next few weeks could be a tipping point. But Ukraine is finally starting to get the necessary weaponry from the free world to have a chance to actually succeed in pushing Russia out of their territory. The new Ukraine funding bill is being scrubbed right now for issues or problems, which is appropriate. We want to be sure, as an example, that the direct economic support has the anti-corruption guardrails we have had in it in the past. The Department of Agriculture funding has to be scrubbed to ensure it actually helps Ukraine. But the scrubbing has been going on for almost a week now. It is time for us to move this legislation. I encourage the Senate Democratic leadership to bring to the floor this Ukraine funding bill this week, not combined with other measures but as a stand-alone piece of legislation not tied to COVID funding or other unrelated priorities, including title 42 and the border, which I feel strongly about, or other issues, including issues to do with Afghanistan and the parolees. Let's keep other issues off of this legislation. Why? Because otherwise it becomes a political football and will be impossible to pass quickly. We have time to deal with those other issues as well, and we should. But our allies in Ukraine are desperate for assistance, and they need it now at this crucial time in this battle. Adding other politically charged issues to this request will slow it down and delay the lethal aid, and in the end will cost the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians at the hands of the ruthless Russian attacks. On the sanctions front, I am pleased that this past week, the administration is finally saying they will move forward in seizing, not just freezing, Russian assets in the United States. Last Thursday, the administration announced a streamline process for seizing assets and finding a legal way to repurpose those assets to help the Ukrainian people. Good for them. I have called for this in legislation I introduced 5 weeks ago with Senator Bennet of Colorado. Our RELIEF Act would ensure seized Russian funds go to support the humanitarian needs in Ukraine, which is just and appropriate. And, by the way, other countries have already done this. The Russians continue to commit war crimes and atrocities against the innocent people of Ukraine. Late last week, Ukrainian authorities filed criminal charges against 10 individual Russian soldiers accused of taking civilians hostage and torturing them in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. Many of you have seen the videos. This is the first such move by prosecutors investigating possible war crimes by Russians. All 10 were noncommissioned officers and privates from Russia's 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, one of the units that took part in the monthlong occupation of Bucha. I call on the International Criminal Court that has announced an investigation to follow in Ukraine's footsteps and immediately begin an actual war crimes tribunal. The evidence of war crimes is clear, and there should be no delay. By holding Russians accountable now, the hope is there will be some deterrent effect to avoid additional war crimes being created. Last week, Secretary Blinken, in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the new budget request, talked about the request for additional funding of $5 million for what is called the Global Engagement Center. This is an organization that Senator Murphy of Connecticut and I cofounded with legislation to combat disinformation abroad. Unfortunately, this very modest increase will not adequately address the massive disinformation efforts by the Kremlin, let alone the world. In this hybrid war in Ukraine, it is not just about kinetic military action; it is also about a massive disinformation campaign. They are bombarding Ukraine with disinformation that must be confronted. The Global Engagement Center is established to do just that. Unfortunately, it has been 2 years since there was a coordinator appointed by a President to lead this Global Engagement Center. This gap in leadership is unacceptable, and I urge the President to immediately appoint a person to this role. The efforts we talked about tonight so far--the heavy weapons, the security assistance, the prosecution of war crimes, and the seizing rather than freezing of Russian assets--are all steps in the right direction. However, further steps have to be taken if we are going to stop the Kremlin from being able to finance this war effort. The biggest problem, by far, is energy. Energy is Russia's No. 1 export. Forty to 50 percent of the Russian budget is funded by energy receipts coming back into the country. President Putin, of course, has long used natural gas as an energy weapon against Europe. Last week, he directed the gas company Gazprom to stop providing natural gas to Poland and to Bulgaria. The natural gas supply from Russia was suspended because of Poland and Bulgaria's refusal to pay in rubles, Russia's currency, which would help bolster Russia's economy and make it easier for them to finance this war. Bulgaria and Poland should be commended for not bowing to Vladimir Putin's wishes. This is also a significant opportunity for the United States to step up further and to help our European allies to wean themselves off of Russian energy. The United States of America has the tools and the resources to help our allies accomplish this. We have a tentative agreement to do so. The United States has already halted the import of Russian energy. I now commend Lithuania and Estonia for recently doing the exact same thing. Poland has indicated they would like to do the same. In order to encourage Europe to end its dependency on Russian oil and gas, America must act now to help ensure there is a more abundant supply of energy resources on the global market for purchase by Europe and other countries. Specifically, we need to expand U.S. production of natural gas that will help stabilize the market, provide liquefied natural gas to Europe, and reduce energy costs for consumers. Most importantly, it will stop the flow of funding to Russia's war machine that is killing innocent Ukrainians every single day. Together, working with Europe, we can end the approximately $870 million a day--$870 million a day--that Europe is sending to Russia to help fund the war machine. We must do so immediately by expanding natural gas production here and our infrastructure here to provide Europe with the promised liquefied natural gas as an alternative to Russian gas. But, more generally, we have to support all our domestic producers here in the United States through a robust, all-of-the-above energy policy that includes fossil fuels, renewables, carbon-capture technologies, nuclear power, hydropower, hydrogen, and energy efficiency. Instead of recognizing that Putin is using energy as a weapon and responding appropriately, unfortunately, the Biden administration has acted to make it more difficult for domestic energy production. These actions include an increase of taxes on energy production proposed in the President's budget, restricting new leases on Federal lands and waters for oil and gas production, rewriting the definitions of the ``Waters of the United States''--or WOTUS, as it is called--which could add significant time and complexity to permitting new energy projects. As I raised directly with Secretary Blinken last week during his time before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, these domestic policies that the administration is pursuing are having a direct and negative impact on our national security and the security of our allies abroad. We need to produce more right now to be able to ensure our national security and their national security is protected. The ruble, the Russian currency, has just about fully recovered from its preinvasion value, in part because Russia is still bringing in revenues from the sale of energy. Our sanctions have left Russia's biggest economic lifeline largely untouched: again, energy sales, specifically to Europe. In addition to cutting off natural gas and the revenue that fuels the Russian war machine, we need to tighten up bank sanctions as they relate to energy. Sanctions for energy transactions don't go into effect against Russian banks, including the VTB Bank, until June 24. These sanctions should have gone in place weeks ago, and they should certainly go into place now. President Biden must lead our allies to do whatever it takes to help Ukraine win, and the administration should make clear that their objective is for Ukraine to push the forces of Russia out of the sovereign territory of Ukraine. Remember, Ukrainians are not asking for us to fight for them, but they are asking us to help them fight for themselves. We have got to do that so they have a chance to win. Last month, I was at the border of Ukraine and Poland, and I was able to talk to a number of Ukrainian refugees. Through their tears, they spoke of their homes being destroyed, their loved ones killed, and the pain of being separated from their husbands and fathers who had stayed behind to fight. Almost every refugee was either a woman or a child, grandparents with their grandchildren. I also saw the heroic efforts and the amazing generosity of spirit from the Polish people who were taking these Ukrainian refugees literally into their homes--to feed them, to give them a roof over their head. Yesterday, I joined my colleagues Chris Coons and Roy Blunt introducing a resolution to commend and recognize Poland's efforts in welcoming Ukrainian refugees and supporting the Ukrainian resistance. Poland has been amazing. Since Russia's invasion began, more than 3 million Ukrainians have fled across the border into Poland. We are so grateful to them for opening their hearts and their homes and for continuing to donate their time and resources to help the refugees. I want to close my remarks today with talking about why the United States has a special obligation to support Ukraine in light of Russia's brutal and illegal invasion. It is important that we not forget the Budapest Memorandum signed by Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine in 1994. After the fall of the Soviet Union, under this 1994 memorandum, a newly independent Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons, but they did so in return for an ironclad commitment from all those signatories--the United States, the UK, and Russia--to respect and ensure Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence. This is what makes Russia's invasion and veiled threats of nuclear weapons particularly outrageous. Russia made a commitment to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. Now Russia invaded Ukraine and is threatening to use nuclear weapons against Ukrainians. This war is in gross violation of the Budapest Memorandum and, of course, Russia's other international commitments, such as the United Nations Charter. For these transgressions, it is now time for the international community to strip Russia of its privilege of sitting on the U.N. Security Council and other bodies of international representation, and Russia should be deemed a state sponsor of terror. There is reporting that Russia believed the invasion would split and weaken the NATO alliance. Instead, as we have seen, Russia's brutal attacks on a neighboring democracy have actually galvanized and strengthened the resolve of NATO and the free world in general and will likely lead to expansion with Finland and Sweden soon joining the NATO alliance. What the United States is doing to help Ukraine with military, humanitarian, and economic assistance and rallying our allies to do the same is critically important, particularly at this time, for the battle is at a critical stage. It is critically important--it is important not just because it fulfills our commitment under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum but because it is in our national interest as the leader of the free world to stand with our allies. There was a speech once written that was never given. It was meant to be delivered by President John F. Kennedy on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, the day that he was killed. The speech was profound and very simple. It said: We, in this country, in this generation, by destiny rather than choice, are the watchmen on the walls of world freedom--by destiny rather than choice. When democracies are under attack by authoritarian regimes, history says when America leads, others will join, and we are victorious in protecting freedom. In this instance, in this critical point in Ukraine, we must continue to lead the free world in standing with Ukraine until their final victory. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I am coming to the floor again this evening to talk about the tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine. This is the ninth week in a row during sessions that I have come to the floor to talk about the brutal and unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine--Ukraine, an ally of ours, a democratic country, and a sovereign country. It has now been more than 2 months since Russia's assault began, and Ukrainians continue to fight with heart, toughness, and conviction. The Russians have been defeated in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. And the Russian Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, was sunk by Ukrainian Neptune missiles. So there have been some successes. But while Ukraine and its people have impressed the free world with their fierce defense of their homeland, the senseless and indiscriminate killing of Ukrainian civilians by Russia continues. In this new stage of the war, Russia has begun an intensified offensive in the Donbas region in the eastern part of Ukraine. A few days ago, a Russian commander affirmed that their goal is to gain full control of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts--meaning control of all of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, rather than the roughly 50 percent they took in 2014, and control of southern Ukraine, cutting Ukraine off from its Black Sea ports, leaving one of the world's most important exporters landlocked. The commander also threatened the territorial integrity of the small country of Moldova that borders southern Ukraine by saying this would connect Russia to the breakaway province of Transnistria, where Russian troops are already stationed. It may not be coincidental that today we heard reports of bombs hitting the Ministry of State building in Transnistria, when no one was there, by the way. Some say this could be a false flag attack, giving Russia an excuse to invade all of Moldova. All of the countries in the region are nervous about their status. They are worried for a good reason. They could be next. I can see why they are concerned. We have all seen with our own eyes what is going on, on television or online, the videos we have seen, but let's not forget, Russia continues to commit war crimes and display an utter disregard for innocent human lives. They continue to prevent evacuation of civilians from Mariupol. They have executed noncombatants, and now there are reports of systemic rape and torture by Russian soldiers. This is on top of previous confirmed reports of the use of cluster munitions and thermobaric weapons on civilians. As of February 28, the International Criminal Court announced allegations would be investigated. That is good. That must happen. But if they wait and have the proceedings once the war is over, in my view, that is too late. The perpetrators must be brought to justice. These horrific Russian assaults on innocent Ukrainian families in Bucha, Mariupol, and elsewhere, the bombing of civilian targets, the rapes, the tortures, all of these are crimes against humanity, and Russia must be held accountable for war crimes, not later but now. If there is not accountability, more senseless killings in Ukraine will occur, and these atrocities are likely to be repeated by others in the future. Many of my colleagues and I were on a video call today with the Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. He expressed his appreciation for the lethal support we have provided here in the U.S. Senate and in the House and through the administration. But he stressed the need for more help, for more heavy weapons to defend and push Russia back in the Donbas region. He also detailed how the country's economy has been severely damaged and what they will need just to stay afloat. Regarding military assistance, I am pleased that this past week the White House heeded calls from a bipartisan group of us to appoint a Ukraine security assistance coordinator to cut through the redtape and get the right military assistance to Ukraine more quickly. It is important, with so many agencies and individuals involved, that one person be solely focused on this critical mission and be held accountable. That person the White House has appointed is a three-star general, Terry Wolff, who has extensive experience as the former Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL and has commanded every level from platoon to armored division. From the very start of this conflict, I have said we need to do more, and we need to do it more quickly. We cannot do that if our assistance gets bogged down by the bureaucracy. Every delay in lethal aid costs Ukrainians lives, so I am pleased we now have a coordinator, and I hope that this will streamline the process. I am encouraged that the administration also recently announced further assistance of $800 million in artillery pieces, ammunition, armored vehicles, and a new loitering munition called the Phoenix Ghost. This is a suicidal drone that is now in the hands of the Ukrainians. That is promising. I understand that the $3.4 billion in security assistance Congress passed in March will soon be exhausted and that there will be a need for additional supplemental funding for Ukraine. I encourage the administration to go ahead and look at that package, send it to us, get us to start thinking about it because when it comes here for a vote, I think we need to act quickly on it, review what the administration has sent, and be sure we do it on a stand-alone basis, rather than having it get bogged down in unrelated legislative matters. I am also pleased that some State National Guards are sending armored vehicles to assist Ukraine in their efforts. The Ohio National Guard will provide some M-113 Armored Personnel Carriers as part of a drawdown of DOD inventories to support Ukraine. This sends a strong message of support to our allies from the Buckeye State. I also appreciate the number of police departments across Ohio, including the Cleveland Police Department--where I was last week--for providing over 200 protective vests to Ukrainians. Thank you. Last week, I had the chance to visit an incredibly effective nonprofit in Ohio called MedWish that collects donated medical supplies from hospitals and provides these medical supplies to countries that are in need--sometimes because of a natural disaster, in this case, because of war. Today, their major focus is on Ukraine, where they have delivered over 7 tons of badly needed medical supplies, and this effort continues. Again, I thank them for what they are doing. I thank all the hospitals and all the private practices that have donated equipment to be able to be sent to Ukraine to save lives. As we all know, this war continues to produce a staggering number of refugees. Last week, the White House announced the program Uniting for Ukraine to streamline the process for bringing 100,000 refugees, with strong ties to the United States, into our country. Uniting for Ukraine will allow Americans and organizations here to sponsor Ukrainians who have been forced to leave their country. The American sponsors will be required to declare their financial support for the applicants, and the Ukrainians applying for this program must meet vaccinations and other public health requirements, as well as biographic and biometric screening, vetting, and security checks. That is all good. These individuals will then be allowed to work and remain in the United States legally for up to 2 years. I have heard personally from so many generous Ohioans who want to open up homes to these refugees, who want to be helpful. More than 500 people have now called or emailed my office, and a number of businesses have expressed interest in offering jobs to these refugees. I urge the administration to quickly staff up this program so that we can bring some of these desperate refugees to the United States as planned. Unfortunately, I am finding out that there is no online portal yet, no way for people to be able to know how they can participate in this process. So my hope is that we will launch this online portal with applications soon so that folks who want to sponsor Ukrainians fleeing the war are able to do so. I wish this had been done sooner, but this is a step in the right direction. Our partners in Europe are doing more than their fair share here. More than 5 million Ukrainians have fled their homeland since the war began, and they are crossing borders into their neighboring countries in Europe. As I saw when I was in Poland last month meeting with refugees, Poland has taken in almost 3 million refugees alone. I think Poland is to be commended with the way they have responded to this Ukrainian crisis in so many respects, including taking these refugees. We saw cars lined up at the refugee processing center, down at the border, of everyday Poles who were there to pick up Ukrainian refugees and to take them into their home. Hungary and Slovakia have taken in hundreds of thousands, too. Surely, the United States can get our act together with regard to the 100,000. I am pleased that Secretaries Blinken and Austin met with President Zelenskyy yesterday in Kyiv. This is the first time since the war began 2 months ago that we have had American diplomats in Kyiv. I think it is important that we are there. The Europeans are there, other countries are there; we need to be there too. I am glad to hear that we are finally reestablishing our diplomatic presence in Kyiv, and I am also pleased that the administration is finally nominating an ambassador to Ukraine. We have had no ambassador to Ukraine during this administration. They have indicated they are going to nominate Bridget Brink, who is a career foreign service officer and is the current U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia; so she has some critical experience in the area. While both of these moves were long overdue, I commend the administration for finally acting--sending a strong signal to our allies and adversaries alike that the United States is serious about standing with Ukraine. Let's get our diplomats back to the capital, back to Kyiv. Let's get an ambassador in place as soon as possible. On the sanctions front, I believe we should be seizing, not just freezing, assets of Kremlin supporters and provide the funds from the sale of these assets to meet the needs of Ukraine. To do this, I introduced with Senator Bennet of Colorado the Repurposing Elite Luxuries into Emergency Funds--RELIEF--for Ukraine Act to require the Department of Justice to direct any funds resulting from the disposal of seized Russian assets to support Ukrainian refugees and support reconstruction. So like other countries have done, including France and Germany, let's seize these assets, like yachts owned by the Kremlin supporters or by President Putin himself, and then take those funds on the sale of those assets and use them immediately to help with the humanitarian effort. I urge the Senate and the House to act this week on this legislation so that we can give Ukrainians the help they need. I continue to believe our top priority on sanctions should be cutting off Russia's No. 1 source of income that fuels the war machine. Forty to 50 percent of their budget is from one place--energy. Those receipts from energy are fueling the Putin war machine. Energy is Russia's largest export and accounts, again, for a significant part--or of roughly half of their budget. Over the past year, the average oil revenues going back to Russia from their exports to the United States alone was $50 million a day. Under pressure from Congress, the administration reversed course and supported blocking Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports into the United States. I am glad we did that. It made no sense for us to help fund the Russian war effort, especially when we have our own resources here, in terms of energy, that we can access. I welcomed the President's announcement in Brussels of the creation of a joint U.S.-EU task force to help reduce Europe's dependency on Russian energy and strengthen Europe's energy security. Europe has become much more dependent on Russia for energy than the United States. Germany now gets almost 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia. This means that Europe, by the way, is now sending an estimated $870 million a day to Russia--$870 million a day in payments for its natural gas, oil, and coal from Russia. Ending that European reliance on Russian energy is the right policy, and it will save lives. Fortunately, again, some progress has been made. The EU has agreed to phase out imports of Russian coal over time. They say over the next several months. They have said that they are willing to work with the United States to have some of our liquefied natural gas, LNG, replace some of the Russian gas. This is a good idea. We should allow more production here in the United States so we have that LNG to be able to export to Germany and to other European countries to replace some of that Russian gas to make them less dependent on Russia and to stop sending this revenue to fund the war machine. Lithuania needs to be held up as the first European Union country to completely cut itself off from Russian natural gas. But the reality, again, is that Europe continues to fund the war machine right now with this $870 million every day in energy receipts going to Russia. Part of the answer, again, lies with us. We must support our domestic energy producers as a means of supporting our national and economic security but also as a way to support our allies. This means America having a robust, all-of-the-above approach to power our Nation, which includes hydrogen, renewables, fossil fuels, carbon capture technologies, nuclear power, hydropower. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Energy is national security. As a practical matter, to stop the revenues going from Europe to fund the Russian war machine, the administration must change policies to get more American LNG to Europe to substitute for Russian gas. This requires more pipelines, more infrastructure, more export facilities, of course. Unfortunately, we aren't off to a very good start on that front. The President's tax proposals released with his recent budget submission to Congress eliminates important tax provisions used by our domestic producers, like the deduction for intangible drilling costs, or IDCs, which allows natural gas and oil producers to deduct costs that are necessary for the drilling in preparation of wells. Let's take an approach here where we are encouraging, again, all of the above in order to ensure our national security and to help our allies in Europe. The ruble has just about fully recovered to its preinvasion value because Russia is still bringing in these revenues from the sale of its energy. Shares on Russia's stock market are trading again, and Russia's VTB bank remains open for business in Europe, where it has gathered billions of euros in deposits, mainly from German savers. Our sanctions have left Russia's biggest economic lifeline largely untouched--again, energy sales, specifically to Europe. In fact, in addition to cutting off the natural gas and the revenue that fuels the Russian war machine, we need to tighten up bank sanctions as they relate to energy. Sanctions for energy transactions don't go into effect against Russian banks, including the VTB bank, until June 24. Those sanctions ought to go into place right now. They should have gone into place weeks ago. President Biden must lead the alliance to do what it takes to help Ukraine win, and the administration needs to make clear that their objective is for Ukraine to actually be victorious, to push the forces of Russia out of the sovereign territory of Ukraine. We must remember that the Ukrainians are not asking us to fight for them, but they are asking for the tools to defend themselves so they have a chance to win. I have said before that both Ukraine and Georgia should be given what is called a membership action plan as a next step toward NATO membership. Based on the actions of the Russians and the fighting spirit of the Ukrainians, I now feel more strongly than ever that Ukraine should be part of NATO. They deserve it. I am encouraged that both Finland and Sweden are considering NATO membership. They should both be immediately welcomed into the NATO family. Vladimir Putin sought to weaken the NATO alliance. This is yet another strategic failure on his part, as we are coming closer together and will potentially add even more members. I will close with this thought: Some might ask--even a few of my colleagues have asked me--why a Senator from Ohio cares about what goes on in Ukraine. Well, the first answer is, we should all care. This is about the fight for freedom in our time, in our generation. This is where it is being engaged right now. I also happen to have tens of thousands of Ukrainians who call Ohio home. These Ukrainian-Americans are good friends of mine. They are constituents. They keep me informed and have over the years. They have helped me to get more engaged on this issue. I have been to Ukraine six or seven times. When I was at the border of Ukraine and Poland last month, some of my Ohio friends were there too as volunteers, providing food and medical supplies to the refugees. When Ukraine made a decision to turn to us, to turn to democracy and freedom and free enterprise back in 2014, I was there with my colleague Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland. We were there as election observers, but what we really observed was a country that had made a decision to turn to us, to turn to the West, to be like us, to join us in the fight for freedom. Even if I had no constituents of Ukrainian descent, I would be standing here because this is the fight for freedom. This is our test. Are we going to be stand against tyranny and for freedom at a time when these terrible atrocities are being committed? I have been to the border of Ukraine and Poland and talked to these refugees. Through their tears, they spoke of their apartments or homes being destroyed and damaged. They talked of friends and family members being injured or killed. They talked of the pain of being separated from their husbands or fathers, not knowing their fate, since they had stayed behind to fight. They also begged us to put in place a no-fly zone to help them even more. The popular Ukrainian national rallying cry ``Slava Ukraini'' when translated into English is ``Glory to Ukraine.'' And then the response to that is ``Glory to the heroes.'' ``Heroyam Slava.'' In the midst of all this, there are so many heroes to glorify in Ukraine--heroes like the people I saw in Ohio last week who work at MedWish and are providing medical supplies urgently needed in Ukraine; the staff that collect and send these much-needed supplies, going mostly to the women and children of Ukraine who continue to seek safe passage in their homeland. Not only are there heroes here, but there are so many heroes at home in Ukraine. Those are the firefighters. Those are the soldiers. Those are the citizen soldiers. With our help, the Ukrainians can win this war. One of the members of Parliament from Ukraine, from the Rada, who came to see us a few weeks ago here in Congress, perhaps said it best. We met with the Ukrainian Caucus that I co-chair, and we had four members of the Rada come, all women; and the Ambassador from Ukraine was there as well. She said she hears all the time that, ``We are all Ukrainians now,'' and I have heard that back home, and that is how I feel. She said that if that is true, since we are all Ukrainians now, we must be like Ukrainians. She said, ``We must be brave, creative, and fast.'' And that is what they are. They are very resourceful. They have figured out a way to take on one of the biggest armies in the world and be successful, brave, creative, and fast. I urge my colleagues, the administration, and the world: Let us help Ukraine win this war by being brave, creative, and fast. By doing that, we will show the world America stands with Ukraine, which is in our national security interest. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I come to the Senate floor again today to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. This is the eighth week in a row that I have come to the floor to talk about the illegal, totally unprovoked, and brutal Russian invasion of a sovereign country--their neighbor Ukraine--that only wants to live in peace. Over the weekend, all of us saw the brutality of what Russia is doing. We saw it up close through shocking videos and photographs of more than 100 civilians--not soldiers but civilians--lying in mass graves in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv. Yesterday, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting specific atrocities, including rapes and executions. President Zelenskyy painted a vivid, heartbreaking picture this weekend when he spoke of ``civilians left on the streets with their hands tied behind their backs--killed execution style.'' Here is one photograph of the shocking scenes that we saw over the weekend of civilians left in the streets as the Russians pulled out of Bucha, but it is happening all over Ukraine, these kinds of human rights abuses and war crimes. The administration, on Sunday, called for an investigation into the war crimes. That is good. Of course, these are war crimes. The United States must press other countries and must be persistent to ensure that a tribunal is established; that these war crimes are prosecuted; and that people are held accountable. Last week, Senator Dick Durbin and I, as cochairs of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, organized a meeting with four members of the Rada, which is the Parliament in Ukraine. We were also joined by the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova. These women told us of the human toll in this fight, which they described as a fight between good and evil, between tyranny and democracy. They talked about the fact that Ukraine can be a symbol for victory of the West if we support them more and if we help them win. One of the members of Parliament described for us the scenes from Mariupol--of the massive shelling and of the bodies lying in the streets there, too, because it is too dangerous to go out to recover them. One parliamentarian told us of being separated and of often being out of touch with her husband, who is in harm's way with the Ukrainian military, while she is here telling us these stories to encourage us to do more. One said that there are 30 Russian soldiers living in her grandmother's house. They forced her out into the bitter cold. They all told us, with anguish and urgency, of what needs to happen: more sanctions, more military assistance, more equipment. One of them said--and I thought this was well put--freedom has to be armed. Freedom has to be armed. I agree. I believe Ukraine can be victorious if the United States and our allies, especially the Europeans, help them to be victorious, and that means helping them more. They are fighting with heart, and although badly outnumbered, are making progress in key parts of the country. We have seen this in the region around Kyiv, where they are pushing the Russians out. This is the time to redouble our efforts to help ensure victory. It has now been 38 days since Russia's assault began. Russia is also now trying to redefine their objectives, saying that it was never their intention to seize Kyiv and the other major urban centers. Of course, we know that that is a lie. They tried very hard to seize Kyiv. They just weren't successful because the Ukrainians fought back so valiantly. So we need to watch the Russians' actions, not their words. Their actions in the south and in the eastern part of the country are that they continue to bomb, bomb, and bomb civilian targets. The most important reason Ukraine is winning these battles is, of course, the fighting spirit of the men and women of Ukraine--the patriots who are taking the fight to the Russians on the battlefield. They are well trained, and we in the West are part of that. For the last 4 years, this body, the U.S. Senate, has provided funding to help train Ukrainians, and it has been very helpful. They are also motivated to defend freedom, to defend their homeland, to protect their families. There is no substitute for that kind of fighting spirit, and that is what the Russians are finding. We can also see the complete disregard for the rules of war by the Russian forces, including, most recently, through their actions in Mariupol. The words ``children,'' in Russian, were clearly emblazoned on a theater where young people took shelter. The letters were large enough to be seen from the sky to deter bombs. You probably saw that. They had the theater and then, on the outside, these huge words, saying ``children'' in Russian. Yet the Russians bombed this theater. We have now learned, sadly, that there were more than 300 people killed, mostly women and children. They were trapped in that rubble and killed when the theater was hit by a Russian bomb. They continue to violate the terms of a negotiated humanitarian corridor to help civilians flee Mariupol by shelling these corridors with artillery as people attempt to flee. For the fourth straight day, Russia continues to block the Red Cross from reaching Mariupol to deliver much needed humanitarian aid to the city. We know the innocent people who are trapped there are dying of starvation and dehydration. As Russia escalates, civilian targets are being hit, in various cities, with cluster bombs, with vacuum bombs, even with the first-ever use of a supersonic weapon. Thousands of civilians have needlessly died in this senseless war. More than 10 million people have been displaced from their homes, and over 4 million refugees--almost all women and children and the elderly--have fled the country they love while their men have stayed behind to fight the invaders. Meeting with refugees a few weeks ago as they crossed the Polish- Ukrainian border and hearing their stories was heartbreaking. They told stories of their trauma through their tears. Although it was heartbreaking for us to hear it, they didn't want our sympathy; they wanted our protection. They wanted us to help stop the bombing. The United States must stand with our allies against these atrocities. The President's recent speech in Poland underscored the stakes of this conflict if Russia wins. Frankly, it will mean the international order has failed, and more conflict, death, and destruction will follow. So this is a war in Ukraine, but the implications go well beyond the borders of Ukraine. Tonight, I, once again, offer some ideas about where we can go from here. Last week, I talked a lot about our top priority on the sanctions front needed to be cutting off Russia's No. 1 source of revenue that fuels the war machine, and that is the revenue that comes from Russia's energy sales. Energy is, by far, Russia's biggest export. It accounts for almost half of Russia's entire Federal budget. The revenues from oil account for between 40 and 50 percent of Russia's budget. Over the past year, the average oil revenues going back to Russia from their exports to the United States alone, just to the United States--and we imported relatively little compared to other countries in Europe, for instance, but it was $50 million a day we were sending to Russia. Under pressure from Congress, the administration reversed course and supported blocking Russian oil, natural gas, and even coal imports into the United States, thank goodness. It made no sense for us to be helping fund the Russian war effort, especially when we have our own resources here that are actually cleaner resources that we need to provide access to. I welcome the President's announcement in Poland last week of the creation of a joint U.S.-European Union task force to reduce Europe's dependency on Russian energy and strengthen Europe's energy security. That agreement is a good step forward. I am glad that we agreed to do that and got the Europeans to sign on to this agreement, but to make it work, to make it actually happen, we have got to support domestic energy producers here as a means of supporting our national security. Especially with this Russian invasion, the importance of the United States having an ``all of the above,'' robust approach to power our Nation, which includes fossil fuels, carbon capture technologies, hydrogen renewables, and nuclear power, cannot be overstated. As a practical matter, if we want to stop the revenues going from Europe-- the billions of dollars--to Russia to fund this war machine, we are going to have to change our policies here in America to provide more American liquefied natural gas to go to Europe. That is what the agreement calls for. But we are going to have to change policies to make that happen so that American energy can substitute for Russian energy. Unfortunately, we aren't off to a really good start of late. The President just sent his fiscal year 2023 budget request to Congress, and among the proposals are the elimination of important tax provisions used by our domestic producers, including oil and gas, like the deduction for intangible drilling costs, or IDCs, which allow natural gas and oil producers to deduct costs that are necessary for the drilling and preparation of wells. Taxpayers deduct their costs of doing business. IDCs are one such cost for energy companies. Shortsighted proposals like these will serve to discourage domestic energy production at a time when we need to encourage it to help in this war effort. Unfortunately, the administration has consistently sent a message to American energy producers that one of their goals is to phase out the use of fossil fuels and make it more difficult even now by stifling production. This rhetoric, combined with actions like canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline--billions of dollars have been invested in it; suspending new leases on Federal lands and waters; and redefining things like the waters of the United States, or WOTUS, to make energy permitting harder--these things have led to uncertainty and less investment in the oil and gas industry. We need to reverse that, again, along with renewables. There is room for all. An important initiative to build our domestic energy infrastructure is also part of the answer. We need more pipelines and we need more LNG export facilities, and that requires streamlining the Federal permitting process. Historically, it can take a decade or more for the Federal Government to issue permits to build pipelines. We have a law called FAST-41, which improves the permitting process for big projects by requiring Agencies in the Federal Government to work together to set out a plan and a timeline for permitting projects. It also creates what is called the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, which can resolve disputes over the permitting process and get a green light on a project much more quickly, whether it is oil and gas or whether it is renewables, solar, or wind. Let's use that process to provide this alternative to Russian energy. This doesn't mean not following the environmental rules. You follow them, but you get the permit far more quickly and with much less expense. We have to step forward and lead our European allies in doing all they can to provide substitutes to Russia's energy sector. Yesterday, the country of Lithuania became the first EU country to completely cut itself off from Russian natural gas. I applaud them for taking this strong action and hope other countries will quickly follow suit. Lithuania gets it. They know that as a country that is part of the Baltics in the region, they could be next. If we don't do this, we are not going to be able to tighten the sanctions on Russia because we will continue to send, again, billions of dollars to support the war machine. The ruble has recovered its value in part because Russia is bringing in revenue from its sale of energy. Shares on Russia's stock market are trading again. And Russia's VTB Bank remains open for business in Europe, where it has gathered billions of euros in deposits, mainly from German savers. Our sanctions have left Russia's biggest economic lifeline largely untouched, and that is energy sales to Europe. I know it is harder for them. They are much more dependent. That is why we need to help more. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it is estimated that billions have gone back to the Kremlin in energy resources and revenues from Europe. In addition to cutting off the natural gas and the revenue that fuels the Russian war machine, we need to tighten up bank sanctions as they relate to energy. Sanctions for energy transactions don't go into effect against Russia's biggest banks, including VTB Bank, until June 24. That is simply too late. President Biden must lead the alliance to do what it takes to help Ukraine win, and the administration needs to make clear their objective is for Ukraine to win. Things like a June 24 date for energy transactions are not acceptable. We need to close the loopholes in the sanctions and, of course, provide more lethal aid to Ukraine. We need blocking sanctions on all of Russia's finance and defense industry. We should expand full blocking sanctions on all the banks. I continue to call for revoking international tax and trade agreements that give Russia privileges not appropriate for a pariah country. Let's pass the end of PNTR--most favored nation treatment--for Russia here on the floor of the Senate this week. Let's get it done. Most Russian banks still have access to SWIFT when it comes to international energy transactions. That is not acceptable. This is a massive loophole that is sending blood money to kill innocent Ukrainians. This week, I will introduce legislation with Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon to disallow foreign tax credits for companies that pay taxes to the Russian Government. We have bipartisan agreement on policies to ensure American taxpayers are not subsidizing the Russian war machine. I believe we should seize, not just freeze, assets of Kremlin supporters. Last week, I introduced, with Senator Bennet of Colorado, the Repurposing Elite Luxuries Into Emergency Funds--RELIEF--for Ukraine Act to require the Department of Justice to direct any funds resulting from the disposal of seized Russian assets to support Ukrainian refugees and reconstruction. So let's seize these assets, like the yachts owned by the Kremlin supporters or by President Putin himself, and then take those funds and use them immediately to help with the humanitarian effort. Regarding military assistance, the Ukrainians have made it clear they desperately need more equipment, more munitions, and they need it now. In our meeting last week, the members of Parliament from Ukraine detailed what they need from us, and their list is not new. They said they need fighter jets. They need these MiGs. They appreciate the Stinger missiles that have been effective for lower altitude planes and helicopters, but they don't understand why NATO and the United States are blocking other Soviet-era military equipment to be able to help them. They want these surface-to-air missiles to be able to strike long- range Russian artillery rockets and high-altitude rockets that are raining down on their cities and killing civilians with impunity. This is not too much to ask. We have to find ways to send them these long- range air defense systems. Our Eastern European neighbors have S-300s and other systems the Ukrainians know how to operate. We may have some ourselves. Let's reposition our Patriot missiles in those countries in Eastern Europe so that they can then send their old Soviet-style systems to Ukraine that the Ukrainians know how to operate. It has now been weeks since our Secretary of Defense stood with our NATO ally Slovakia and the Slovakian Defense Minister said Slovakia was ready to transfer S-300 missile defense systems, which the Ukrainians can operate, ``immediately.'' Let's do it. Compared to what the Ukrainian forces have now, more S-300s could cover more ground and intercept incoming aircraft and missiles. The bureaucratic redtape delaying the S-300 transfer is costing innocent lives every day. We must also find ways to quickly provide Ukraine with more armed drones, such as the Turkish TB2 and one-use loitering munitions, which the Ukrainians know how to use and have been effective on this battlefield. Three weeks ago, it was announced that we were sending 100 so-called Switchblade loitering munitions. These are so-called suicide drones, one-use drones, but they can be used to destroy an armored vehicle or another target. One hundred will go very quickly. We should send more, and we should send bigger drones, which we have in our inventory. They could be effective against tanks and effective against ships. They have been asking for help across the board that is not yet delivered. They have been asking for tanks, more anti-ship systems to fend off missiles from the Black Sea, and more equipment to clear Russian mines. On tanks, they know how to operate the Soviet-era T-72 tanks that are in the inventory of many Eastern European countries. Let's facilitate those transfers. We can do more, and we should do more--not weeks from now but now. They are not asking for us to fight for them, but they are asking for us to provide them the tools to be able to defend themselves. There should be no gap in our weapons transfers, and we should continue to lead. We need not just organize our NATO allies, which we have done a good job at, in my view, but now help to lead our NATO allies in providing more support and coordinating the support from those countries. I also believe that both Ukraine and Georgia should be given what is called a membership action plan, which is the next step toward NATO membership. It doesn't make them parts of NATO, but, based on the actions of the Russians and the fighting spirit of the Ukrainians, I believe more strongly than ever that it would put Russia on notice that these countries are on the road to faster membership because of what Russia has done. Some may ask why a Senator from Ohio would care about what is going on in Ukraine. Well, we should all care. This is about the fight for freedom. This is where it is being engaged in our generation, in our time. I also happen to have tens of thousands of Ukrainians who call Ohio their home. These Ukrainian Americans are friends of mine. They are constituents of mine. They have been keeping me informed over the years. They have helped me to get more engaged in this issue. I have been to Ukraine six or seven times since 2014, when Ukraine made a decision to turn to us, to turn to democracy and freedom and free enterprise. But even if I had no constituents who were of Ukrainian descent, I would be standing here because this is the fight for freedom. This is our test. Are we going to stand against tyranny and for freedom at a time when these terrible atrocities are being committed? When I was on the Polish-Ukrainian border, I talked to a lot of these refugees, as I said, and through their tears, they talked about what was going on. They talked about their homes being destroyed, their apartments being destroyed, their friends or family members being hurt, some killed, the pain of being separated from their husbands and fathers, not knowing their fate back home. By the way, they all want to go home. They all want to go home desperately. They pleaded for us to do more to stop the missiles, and they all said: Please, protect the skies. They told us of this atrocity up close. In the midst of this atrocity, there are so many heroes in Ukraine who are stepping forward: the soldiers--professionals and civilians who have taken up arms--the doctors and the nurses, the firefighters, the volunteers who are providing food and water and blankets just to keep people alive. We pray for all of them. We pray for their families. Godspeed to them in their very simple quest: a battle for a free and independent country. They just want to live in peace. I will close with this thought. The Ukrainians can be victorious but only if we help organize other freedom-loving countries all around the world to support them. We must lead. One of the members of Parliament said it best, I think, when she said she hears all the time ``We are all Ukrainians. We are all Ukrainians.'' I think that is a good sentiment. But she said: If that is so, then we must be like Ukrainians, meaning we must be brave, creative, and fast. Her point was: We need help; we need it now. Be creative. Figure out a way to get those tanks there, to get those more powerful drones there, to get the planes there that they need, to get the humanitarian assistance that they need desperately in Ukraine into these cities. Be brave. Be creative. Be fast. So I urge my colleagues and the administration and the world: Let's help Ukraine actually win this war. That is now possible. This is the time for us to redouble our efforts and to be brave, creative, and fast. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I am here on the floor today to talk about border security, an issue that is intertwined with our national security and, certainly, with the drug epidemic that we see in our communities around the country. We are in the middle right now of the worst border crisis in the history of our country. This chart tells the story. Monthly border crossings are at an unprecedented level. Customs and Border Protection reports that there were 164,973 encounters at the border in February. By the way, that is equal to the population of Dayton, OH. Actually, it is far greater than the population of Dayton, OH. So we have never had this kind of illegal migration into the country--this many people being apprehended. They told us last week that they are seeing over 7,000 migrants per day in this month, in March, and this is while something called title 42 is in effect. What is title 42? Well, despite these really big numbers you see here in terms of the number of people being apprehended at the border, under what is called title 42, which is a public health authority--it has nothing to do with immigration, really. It is about public health, and it is in place because of COVID-19. It allows the Customs and Border Protection folks to say: Sorry, you can't come into the United States for public health reasons. And, therefore, they can be turned away. So that order is in place right now. Here is how that has worked. If you look at this chart, you will see the people who have been turned away because of title 42, in orange. Those are the numbers in orange. Those who have been allowed to come into the country are in blue. You will see here, at the end of the last administration, in the Trump years, when we had for the most part a secure border, we had very few illegal entries. We had about 75 percent of the people who were coming in who were turned away by title 42. In this administration, it is closer to about 50 percent. About 50 percent of the people are being turned away by title 42. Why is this important? Well, obviously, we are making progress on COVID. COVID-19, we all hope, is not going to be here forever. There may be another variant out there, but as we are relaxing mask mandates and telling people that they don't have a vaccination mandate anymore to be able to come to work or travel across our borders, we are hearing reports that the Biden administration may rescind title 42, so get rid of this authority within the next several weeks. And do you know what? Unless we have a new variant, God forbid, that comes in and causes a new health crisis, they are probably right. Title 42 shouldn't be used in this way because it is a public health authority, not an immigration law. The problem is that if that happens--remember, we already have an unprecedented number of people coming into the country. Look at this chart. If that happens, then all these folks who are being turned away--the orange bars here--are going to be coming across the border also without title 42 in place to have them be turned away. This is why the Border Patrol tells me--and I know the Presiding Officer hears the same thing all the time--that they are already overwhelmed. But they say it will be out of control. Now, some may argue it is already out of control. But it is going to get a whole lot worse. So they are worried on the border, and rightly so, that the current crisis is going to become far worse. My two colleagues from Arizona, both Democrats, to my understanding, have just asked President Biden to keep title 42 in place. And I think that makes sense to keep it in place right now because we are not ready for a huge increase of migrants coming across the border. We can't handle the current wave. The information we received from the Department of Homeland Security is that they are planning for a massive increase of migrants when this happens. I am the ranking Republican--the top Republican--on the Department of Homeland Security oversight committee, called the HSGAC Committee, or Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. We are talking to the Department of Homeland Security, and they are preparing for a huge increase. But their plan seems to be more about more buses, more planes, and more tents to help expedite the flow of these migrants into the country rather than figuring out a way that an immigration system should work better to be able to say to people: Come legally. Come legally. Please don't come illegally--which is what these numbers represent. By the way, I am for legal immigration. I think it has enriched our country. I think it is a very important part of the fabric in our Nation. It makes us special. We brought people in from all over the world, including, pretty much, all of our parents and grandparents and, certainly, great-grandparents. Anybody who is in the Chamber, unless you are Native American, you came here or your family came here as immigrants. But legal immigration, while it should be encouraged, is not the same thing as what we are talking about here. We are talking about illegal entry, people who don't qualify under the legal system. And in all of these countries where people are coming from, others are waiting in line patiently under the legal immigration system. So America, typically, is the most generous country in the world, year after year, in accepting legal immigrants. Sometimes, that changes based on the refugee flows, and we are seeing the refugee flows today in Poland, as an example. Poland is going to be the most generous country in the world, thanks to the brutal and murderous and cowardly attacks by Putin on that country. But America is a generous country in terms of immigrants, and we should be. But with regard to legal immigration, we are not just a country of immigrants--that has enriched us--we are also a country of laws, right? So we have to have some laws in place to deal with this illegal immigration. And, of course, it is not just about people coming illegally. It is about all the other contraband that comes across the border, particularly illegal drugs. So I believe we have to keep title 42 in place for now, but I also agree this is not a long-term solution to the crisis we have at the southern border. To use a healthcare authority to effectively take care of about half the illegal immigration coming across the border doesn't make sense. By the way, when you see the difference here in the use of title 42, it is because, during the Trump years, they used title 42 for families and for single adults coming over; whereas, here, the Biden administration chose not to apply it to families for the most part. The vast majority of families do not get stopped because of title 42. It is just single adults, which is the vast majority of people coming across the border illegally. So that is the difference in terms of the percentage of use of title 42. So we have a real problem on our hands. It is already overwhelming, and it is about to get a lot worse. What is the solution? Well, the solution is to fix our immigration laws. The foundation underneath all this and the problem that has resulted in these numbers is because our immigration law doesn't work. It is broken, and everybody acknowledges that. I don't know a Member in this Chamber who wouldn't acknowledge, at least privately, that our immigration system is broken. How can you look at these numbers and not realize that? And yet we haven't been able to find a bipartisan way forward. It is very frustrating. What we have to do is we have to look at the underlying laws and why they don't work. Well, there is one reason, and it is by far the biggest reason. It may not be the only one. You can argue that we should put in more Border Patrol. We should do that. We should have more fencing. We should do that. But the biggest problem is our asylum policy in this country. The administration has implemented the asylum policy in a way that makes getting control of the border impossible. Now, what is asylum? Well, it is something to help people who really need relief. And it should be used for that, for people who have a credible fear of persecution. So back in their home country, they are being persecuted. They come to America, and they apply for asylum. We have a tradition in America of accepting those people as we accept refugees. It is basically the same standard. But the problem is that people are coming into our country and claiming asylum, going through a long system, which we will talk about in a minute, not qualifying for asylum, and yet staying in our country. And this has caused a huge pull factor where people from all over the world are coming to America because they are told: Gosh, all you have to do is apply for asylum, and they will let you in, and it is unlikely that you will ever have to leave. That is how the system works now. I mean, that is just the honest truth, and I think if you talk to anybody who is objective about this, they will admit it. Now, some people think: We should not have the asylum policy act as our immigration policy. These people should just be allowed to come in. There are some people who believe that. My belief is we ought to stick with the legal immigration system--again, the most generous in the world in most years--and say that, for asylum, let's limit it to people who actually qualify for asylum. Let's not let people misuse the system to gain entry into the United States. By the way, the people who are misusing it are the smugglers because it is the smugglers who go to the family, let's say, in a country like Ecuador or Guatemala, and they say: Give me a bunch of money--like 10,000 bucks, which is a lot of money for a poor family in one of these countries--and I will get your kids or you and your kids into the United States and get them in school, get you a job, because America has this crazy asylum policy where you can just do that. And we will talk about how that works in a second, but that is a pull factor. I recently went to Latin America and met with the Presidents of Mexico and Guatemala and Ecuador and Colombia. They all said the same thing, which is this: Please change your policies because it is a pull factor. You are taking some of our best and brightest people, and they all want to come to the American border and go across because they know this is how they can get into your country. You have a legal immigration system where people stay here and apply and go through the process. That is fine. But change your asylum policy. Now, that may surprise some people. People may think: Well, the Presidents of those countries might like when people leave and send money back to their family. But, no, they don't want to lose all these people, and that is what is happening. Look at these numbers. That is what is happening. By the way, it is not just people who are from Central America and Mexico. So here is an interesting chart that I asked my team to put together. These are encounters at the southwest border--so when somebody gets stopped, apprehended by the Border Patrol--of people who are not from either Mexico or the Northern Triangle. So look at how this has increased. Back in 2018, there were very few people coming across the border illegally who weren't from Mexico or Central America, the so-called Northern Triangle countries. Look at what happens here. You have a huge increase of people coming over the border who are from other countries. So I was told today that there were people coming over the border this year from 150 countries. You probably heard the stories of people from Ukraine, a country that is under siege by Russia. You can't blame the people for leaving that country. And I have been to Poland, on the border, recently, and I have seen the refugees there. But some of these refugees are actually coming to Mexico and then finding their way to the southern border and coming across the southern border, from Ukraine and also from Russia. And the Border Patrol has confirmed that for me. So this has ticked up as this conflict continues. Why? Because they know the easiest way to get into America is to walk across the southern border and you claim asylum and you get in. Now, we have just decided to bring 100,000 refugees in from Ukraine because of this crisis. So maybe that will be a way that more people can come. They don't have to come through the southern border. But now, they know this is the easy way to come in. And look at these numbers. So it is not just people, again, from Mexico and Central America. Now, it is people from all over the world. And for some of these people, the Border Patrol is nervous because they come from countries where there are a lot of people who want to do us harm. So people are coming in from countries in the Middle East, as an example. They are concerned and for good reason. So what happens when you come to the border and you claim asylum? So, after you tell the Border Patrol that you would like to claim asylum, you then are permitted to come into the country, assuming you meet a basic standard where you say the right things about having a credible fear of persecution, and you get in line for an asylum determination. So you come to Washington, DC, or my hometown of Cincinnati or Tucson, AZ--wherever it is--and your wait is between 4 and 6 years. Others say it is 4 to 8 years because of the appeals process, but let's say it is 4 to 6 years--so an average of 5 years that you are in the United States, waiting for your asylum request to be adjudicated. What happens during that time period? Well, you are able to work. Your kids are able to go to school. You get embedded into the community, as you might imagine. Some people show up for their court cases; some people don't. They are in the community. They probably feel it is unlikely they will be deported. So it is not a system that works well to have that kind of a lag time. By the way, there are 1.5 million people in this category--1.5 million people in this backlog. Does this make any sense? Here is what is most unusual about this process, I will say: At the end of the process, when the asylum adjudication is made, do you know what happens? Most people are told: I am sorry. You don't qualify. In fact, the latest information that we have from the Department of Homeland Security is that immigration judges granted asylum to roughly 2,400 migrants in fiscal year 2021. These, again, all originated with a credible fear claim, a credible fear of persecution in their home countries--2,400. That is just 14 percent of such cases completed. That would mean, in terms of these cases, these numbers we have here, that roughly 85 percent or 86 percent of the people who applied, who went through the process, were not granted asylum. Now, I have heard different numbers here, but I have never heard somebody tell me a number that is close to 50 percent. So, the majority of people who go through this whole process wait 4 to 6 years and finally have their court cases heard. Again, in fiscal year 2021, it would appear it was 2,400 in removal. That would be just 14 percent of such cases completed. The vast majority don't meet our standard. So who are these people? They are economic refugees. Who can blame them for wanting to come to the United States of America? If I lived in one of these countries and wanted to look out for my kids and my family, as we all do, I might do the same thing. I don't agree with people who say: Oh, these folks are coming over here to use our welfare and to commit crimes. Some of them do--we know that--both of those things, but I think the vast majority of them come here--and I have talked to a lot of them, as has the Presiding Officer. If you go to the border, you meet these people. These are families who are poor and who are looking for a better life, a higher salary, better healthcare, a future for their kids, but they are not coming legally, and that is the issue. Economic refugees don't qualify as asylees. They don't meet the standard to come in under the asylum process. They have to come in under the legal immigration system. Look, it is a complicated issue, but in some respects, it is really very simple, isn't it? We have a process here in our country now whereby, if you show up to the border and you claim asylum and you get in, there is a very good chance, although you will not have your claim adjudicated favorably, that you will end up being able to just stay in the United States. There is discussion about how many people are actually deported once they are put into removal. In other words, if they are told they don't meet the standards and are put into removal, are they deported? Well, the priority of Homeland Security--and, again, we are the oversight committee for this--is people who have criminal records and people who are terrorists, who pose some threat to the country. That means, for the vast majority of the people, they are not going to be prioritized in terms of removal. There is also an opportunity to appeal. That is why some people say it is not 4 to 6 years but that it is 4 to 8 years. But let's say it is even 4 years. That is a long time to wait--1.5 million people. Now, I am told that the administration is coming up with a new rule to help deal with this issue, and I was initially very encouraged when I heard about this. What I have been asking for, for some time, is a system where we adjudicate these cases at the border as soon as people come across, yes or no. Let people know. If it is no, go back home, and apply legally. If it is yes, come on into the United States. You then are a legal immigrant. Eventually, you qualify for a green card, and eventually you qualify for citizenship because you are an asylee, like a refugee. But let's do that adjudication at the border when people come. That is what the law says. It says people should be detained until they are adjudicated, but it is not what we do. I have been pushing for Congress to actually fund this effort--it is going to be expensive--of places where people can be humanely detained during a short period of time while they actually go before an immigration official who can determine, yes, you are in or, no, you don't qualify, rather than waiting years and years, as we do now. Again, 1.5 million people are in limbo who are in the United States. So I was sort of excited when I heard that the administration was coming up with a new rule for quicker decisions. I think that makes sense. However, I am learning more about this proposed rule. It appears to be another asylum appeal on top of an already backlogged asylum system. This is why I say that: It adds an asylum officer to the process--who is on the border--and when a person comes forward and says ``I have a credible fear of persecution, and I want to claim asylum,'' this individual, who is not a judge but who is an asylum officer and is trained, is able to either approve or deny the case. The problem is, if you approve the person, the person comes in and, again, eventually gets a green card and becomes a legal immigrant, but if the person is denied, apparently the individual then goes into the regular process and can immediately appeal to an immigration judge. It just adds another layer that can be appealed. So I am concerned about that. Now, I am told that there will be an effort to speed up an immigration judge's decision under this process. So, if there is an officer at the border who makes the initial determination and if the initial determination is no, then the judge would have to act more quickly than the 4 to 6 years that are currently in place. So that would be an improvement. That would be an improvement if it could be faster, but I am not sure how that is going to happen because the reason it is 4 to 6 years is that there is a 1.5 million-person backlog. My view would be, as people are coming in, they ought to be adjudicated quickly, yes or no. If it is yes, come on in. If it is no, go back home. That would send a message to the next group who is being told by these smugglers we talked about: You know, just pay me this money, and I will get you into America. Your kids can go to school, and you can go to work. I fear that, unless we fix this system, it is going to give those human smugglers even more opportunities to encourage unlawful migration. By the way, this comes at a time when the DHS recently reported to Congress that several million migrants in the Western Hemisphere are getting ready to start their journey to the United States. Why? Because they know title 42, which we talked about earlier, is going to disappear. It is in the orange here. So this is a time when, apparently, there are more people who are thinking about coming. We know as we have seen the caravans and so on. That is not something that we want to go through again. It is a pull factor, as I said earlier. It is pulling people to the border. It is giving the coyotes, the traffickers, the smugglers the ability to make lots of money and to bring people, again, not just from Mexico and Central America but from all over the world. By the way, the journey north is a dangerous one. I know everybody has heard about that and has seen that. We saw recently that there was a tractor-trailer full of migrants that crashed, and dozens of people were killed. We know about the sexual assaults of women, girls, boys. We know about the human trafficking that occurs in connection with this. We know about the cartels that are involved with this smuggling and how much they charge people. By the way, just last year, there were 10,000 requests for Border Patrol help from people who were in distress because they were left in the desert to their own devices. They needed water or they needed food. They needed to be rescued. There have been over 10,000 cases wherein the Border Patrol has gone and rescued migrants who were left by these smugglers in the middle of the desert. So this is not a system that we should hold up as a good system. This is a system that is broken and corrupt, and the people making money, again, are the cartels. Drug cartels, by the way, are very involved in this. So it is about people, but it is also about drugs, and we all know this. They know when the Border Patrol agents are being taken offline to process people who are coming into the country, which leaves wide-open gaps for them to transport drugs into America. I saw it when I was down there last year. I was down more recently also. What I saw was--we were out at night, and a group of migrants was coming, and the Border Patrol was going to that location to stop them and to question them. Meanwhile, the drug smugglers came across. We all heard it on the radio, and you could see it, but what could they do? They were distracted. Fentanyl is the deadliest of the drugs. This is the synthetic opioid that is killing more people than is any other drug. About two-thirds of the people who die of overdoses in my home State of Ohio and probably in the Presiding Officer's State are dying from fentanyl or from a variant of fentanyl. It used to come from China--through the mail, for the most part. We did a pretty good job of stopping that, including with legislation called the STOP Act, which I was proud to be a part of. Yet it is like Whac-A-Mole, wherein you stop it here, and it starts somewhere else, and now it is coming in from Mexico. A lot of the analogs and a lot of the precursors are coming from China, still, into Mexico. It is then being made into either a pill or into some other substance that comes into the United States. I do a lot of work in this area in terms of the prevention and the treatment and the longer term recovery, and I think that that is really the most important part--to stop the demand. But I have got to tell you that it is really hard right now for people who are interested in helping on the treatment side or in law enforcement back home because this stuff is flooding across the border. It means that the supply has gone up, and it means it is so cheap. Law enforcement in Ohio told me that it is cheaper than marijuana on the street--fentanyl--and that it is being pressed into pills that say things like ``Xanax'' or ``Percocet.'' Unfortunately, people are taking those pills, not knowing it has fentanyl, and some are dying of overdoses immediately. Last year in Ohio, we had, unfortunately, a record level of overdose deaths again. In America, the same was true--100,000 people died of overdoses from these drugs. Again, probably 60 percent--two-thirds--in Ohio were dying of fentanyl. Last year, we had a 40-percent increase in fentanyl coming over the southern border, which is based on apprehensions. By the way, Border Patrol will tell you, when you go and talk to them, that they are not stopping a lot of it because they don't have the ability; they don't have the resources. But it is a true crisis--four times as much as in 2019. According to the CDC, fentanyl and these other synthetic opioids are the biggest dangers. A few months ago, I was in Nogales, which is south of Tucson, where the Presiding Officer lives. I was there to ride with the Border Patrol and to go to the port of entry and meet with the Border Patrol and customs officials. They are doing an awesome job with what they have--a 24/7 job--to try to protect our Nation from these narcotics and these bad actors, who come from around the world now and try to enter through this vulnerable southern border, and just to deal with the migrant flow that we talked about. It was pretty alarming. They need better equipment. They need help. They need more resources. They need better technology to be able to scan the cars and trucks that are coming in, particularly for the drugs we talked about. Fentanyl, by the way--a relatively small package--can kill thousands of people, so you can hide this stuff in a car or in a truck much more easily. Some of the ports of entry have more technology than others, but here is the average: Less than 2 percent of the passenger vehicles and less than 20 percent of the commercial vehicles coming into the United States are scanned for illegal drugs, like fentanyl. Those are the numbers. It is unacceptable. A smuggler with multiple pounds of fentanyl concealed in a hidden compartment, who is going to make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on that, has a very good chance of getting across the border without a search. It is not a gap in our security; it is a gaping hole, and it helps lead to this flood of cheap fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. Last year, Customs and Border Protection seized nearly 10,000 pounds of deadly fentanyl-- again, a 40-percent increase from 2020. We also face challenges between the ports of entry. In Nogales, the Border Patrol Agent in Charge I rode with showed me huge gaps in the fencing and described an overwhelming, recordbreaking number of unlawful migrants and drugs coming into the United States and of the urgent need, as he told me, for more agents, more trucks, and more technology, including cameras and sensors. These gaps and broken areas of fencing that need repairs, it is just inexcusable. We should fix them. By the way, the smugglers know where these gaps are. The human smugglers know well. The gap I saw, there were all kinds of bottles and old backpacks and stuff where people had discarded things as they come across the border. And you could see the trails. You could see the tracks where people had come across because they know where the breaks are in the fencing. So this is a system that is broken. The difference between what was happening here at the end of the last administration and this system is there were changes in policy that were put in place right away. One widely reported one was the one to stop the installation of the fencing on day one via Executive order. By the way, fencing alone is not enough. You have to have technology that goes with it. But, unfortunately, they stopped the technology too. I was in El Paso probably a year and a half ago, and they showed me the gaps in the wall, and maybe 80 percent of the fencing was done; and then 20 percent was openings where, unfortunately, 24/7, the Border Patrol had to be there or else people would just come across. So it wasn't slowing anybody down. But I focused on the technology because you want the sensors and the cameras and all that. The fence itself is not as effective. In fact, it is not very effective at all if it doesn't have the technology. They said 90 percent of the technology had yet to be installed because of that decision on day one of the Executive order because it stopped all the technology, too. And I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and I talk about this a lot. They are for the technology because they understand this is an issue. But somehow, I don't know, this issue just is one where there is a disconnect between the clearly broken system and what we were able to get together and do on a bipartisan basis. Since the President's inauguration, the southern border has faced the worst unlawful migration crisis we have had. The men and women of the Border Patrol--Customs and Border Protection--I have met over the years are doing the best they can. We need to help them more. They have got really difficult jobs right now. For the Border Patrol, I am working on bipartisan legislation to increase the number of agents, address retention challenges of the existing workforce--they are losing people--and let them respond faster to humanitarian crises, including having a Border Patrol reserve they can call on where people are qualified and ready to help. The ongoing crisis at our southern border is clear, and it is persistent. It is not seasonal anymore, if you look at these numbers. Again, we welcome legal immigrants. We always should. They enrich our country. But we are both a nation of laws and immigrants. I urge the Biden administration to change course, to fix this broken system, to fix and reform this asylum process that acts as a pool factor to America, to stop these policies that send a green light to the human smugglers and the drug traffickers that leads to so much human suffering and a border that is not secure. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor, again today, to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. This is the seventh week in a row I have come out here to talk about the atrocities being committed by Russia and what more the United States and this Congress can do to support Ukraine in its fight for survival. It has now been more than a month since Russia's assault on our ally Ukraine, an independent sovereign democracy, a democracy that just wants to live in peace. Earlier today, Russia continued its cowardly and brutal bombing attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine. Some civilians, like those trapped in and surrounding Mariupol, are dying due to a lack of access to water and food. Russia continues its assault on humanitarian corridors which are designed to allow safe passage for civilians fleeing the conflict and for lifesaving humanitarian aid to come in to those who can't get out. You may recall the theater in Mariupol, where people were taking refuge in the basement and using it as a bomb shelter. The words ``children'' in Russian were emblazed with huge letters clear enough to see from the sky so that it would not be a target, but it was. We just learned Friday that roughly 300 Ukrainian civilians were killed in that basement when the theater was hit by Russian bombs about a week ago--mostly women and children. Vladimir Putin's war has resulted in death and destruction not seen in Europe since World War II. Thousands of civilians have been killed. Roughly, 10 million people have been displaced from their homes, and 3.6 million refugees, almost all women and children and the elderly, have fled the country they love, while men have stayed behind to fight the invaders. In my recent visit to the Polish-Ukrainian border with three colleagues, I talked to dozens of refugees. Through their tears, they spoke of their apartments or houses that were destroyed. They spoke about their friends or family members who were injured or even killed. They talked about the pain of being separated from their husbands or fathers or brothers who had stayed behind to fight, not knowing their fate. They pleaded for us to do more--to stop the missiles, stop the bombs, and they all said they wanted to return to their homeland as soon as they possibly could. President Biden is just back from the region where he, too, met with refugees, and I am glad he went. He was clearly moved by what he saw and heard. I thought his speech in Poland Saturday was a powerful indictment of Russia's invasion and a strong statement of support for Ukraine, as well as a reminder that this battle in Ukraine is about the larger issue of freedom and democracy versus tyranny and authoritarianism. Unfortunately, a compelling speech was overshadowed by an off-the- cuff remark at the end, saying of Putin that ``this man cannot stay in power.'' This was read as supporting regime change in Russia. There is no question in my mind that the world would be a better place and a safer place without Vladimir Putin as President of Russia, but this remark unfortunately played into Russia's propaganda efforts from the start, that NATO, Ukraine, and NATO support of Ukraine are all threats to Russia and attempts to overthrow the Russian Government. None of that is true, of course. All Ukraine wants to do is live in peace with its neighbor. NATO is a purely defensive pact, not offensive in any respect--simply countries pledging to defend one another from attacks. Regime change is neither our policy in this instance or our broader strategic objective. I can imagine that having met with the refugees and having heard their heartbreaking stories that the President was expressing his frustration. I get it. But the President's words and the reaction to them reminds us that this is a true national security crisis, and in this sensitive moment, it requires the United States to speak with clarity and to speak, wherever possible, in unity with our allies in NATO and beyond. Unfortunately, that did not always happen on this trip, whether it was the President talking about our response to the use of chemical weapons, U.S. troops who may end up in Ukraine, or regime change. But tonight I want to focus on another positive aspect of the President's trip that relates to sanctions and offer a few ideas of where we go from here. With regard to our sanctions on Russia, I believe there are a number of additional steps we can and should take. I was glad to hear on March 24 that the Treasury Department issued sanctions against dozens of defense companies, 328 members of the duma legislative body, and the chief executive of SberBank. Gold-related transactions involving Russia may be sanctionable by U.S. authorities, the Treasury Department has also said in a statement. We should do that. But we should also expand full blocking sanctions to all Russian banks, revoking international tax and trade agreements that give Russia privileges not appropriate for a pariah country; seizing, not just freezing, assets from Kremlin supporters; keeping oligarchs from laundering money through expensive art and more. I have introduced legislation on some of these ideas. I have advocated for all of them here on the floor of the Senate and elsewhere, and I will continue to do so, but tonight I want to focus on what I think is the single most important sanction, the one that could make the biggest difference. Our top priority should be cutting off Russia's No. 1 source of income that fuels the war machine, and that is receipts from energy. Energy is, by far, Russia's biggest export. It accounts for roughly half of Russia's entire Federal budget. Over the past year, the average oil revenues going back to Russia from their exports to the United States alone was about $50 million a day. Under pressure from Congress, the administration changed its view and chose to block Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports. And that is good. It made no sense for to us to help fund the Russian war effort, especially when we have our own natural resources here in North America that we can gain access to and actually do so in a way that is better for the environment than Russian oil, that is produced in a way that emits more methane and CO2, and, of course, has to be shipped by sea to our shores, causing more emissions. I recognize that sanctioning Russian energy is far more difficult for some of our allies in Europe which are far more dependent on Russian energy than we were. But the same argument applies. We can't be funding this brutal war. I welcomed the announcement during the President's trip on the creation of a joint United States-European Union task force to help reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy and strengthen Europe's energy security. Specifically, this initiative will help provide at least 15 billion cubic meters, bcm, of LNG exports from the United States, liquefied natural gas, this year, with the goal of shipping 50 bcm of U.S. LNG to Europe annually through at least 2030. This is a very positive step forward because it is telling the Europeans you can cut your dependency on Russia and stop spending money that goes into the war machine and we will back you up. The United States has plenty of natural gas; it is produced in a cleaner way, by the way; and we are happy to back you up. This agreement is not a silver bullet, but it is a step in the right direction. It is smart to support our domestic energy producers as a means of supporting our national and our economic security but also as a way to support our allies in Europe. And in light of this Russian invasion, the importance of the United States having a robust, ``all of the above'' approach to power our Nation, which includes fossil fuels, renewable energies, carbon capture technologies, nuclear power, hydrogen, that cannot be overstated. For context, Europe imported approximately 155 bcm of gas from Russia in 2021 and approximately 22 bcm from the United States through LNG. So 50 bcm from the United States on top of that will lead to a significant increase in U.S. LNG exports and really help Europe. But if this is to work, the administration is going to have to follow through on these commitments to help get more hydrocarbons on the global market to consumers in Europe. If the price is higher in Europe, as predicted, some of the LNG supply will go to Europe instead of Asia, and that will help. That will be based on market forces, but in order to ensure that we meet this increased supply to Europe, we have to increase our production here at home and develop the associated infrastructure, such as pipelines and terminals, to get that natural gas to market. Unfortunately, we aren't off to a great start. The President's tax proposals released with their fiscal year 2023 budget request to Congress eliminates important tax provisions used by our domestic producers, like the deduction for intangible drilling costs, or IDCs, which allows natural gas and oil producers to deduct costs that are necessary for the drilling and preparation of wells. This includes things like wages, fuel, survey work. Taxpayers get to deduct their cost of doing business. IDCs are one such cost for energy companies, and shortsighted proposals like those in the budget would only serve to discourage domestic energy production at a time when we need it. On Friday, I spoke at a natural gas seminar in Ohio and met with energy producers that are working in the Marcellus and the Utica shale in Ohio. We are now a major gas-producing State, thanks to those Utica and Marcellus shale finds, and the producers in Ohio had a lot of thoughts about what was going on that day in Europe. They were glad about the agreement between the EU and the United States, but they drove home to me the key point that we have energy here in the ground, but the current administration's policies have made it very difficult to get that product to market, both domestically and internationally. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has consistently sent a message to these producers and others that one of their goals is to phase out the use of fossil fuels altogether. This rhetoric, combined with actions like canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, suspending new leases on Federal lands and waters, redefining waters of the United States, or WOTUS, which makes it harder to permit energy projects, has led to a lot of uncertainty within the oil and gas industry, which has a chilling effect on domestic energy production--again, at a time when we need it. We need ``all of the above.'' In light of this new LNG initiative with the European Union, the Biden administration's actions must now meet its commitments. An important part of building out our domestic energy infrastructure for gas, renewables, and everything in between is streamlining the Federal permitting process, whether it is a wind power project, solar power project, or a natural gas project. Historically, it can take a decade or more for the Federal Government to issue permits to build pipelines and other necessary infrastructure. I coauthored a law called FAST-41, which improves the permitting process for these big projects by requiring Agencies to work together to set out a plan and a timeline for permitting projects. It also created the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, which can help resolve disputes over the permitting process and get a green light on a project much more quickly. FAST-41 has worked. It has helped projects save billions of dollars and years of time, all while upholding environmental standards. The bipartisan infrastructure bill expanded the Council's authorities and made it permanent, and the recent fiscal year 2022 government funding bill included $10 million for the Council to help support its operations. I urge the Biden administration to use this FAST-41 process to reduce bureaucratic redtape in permitting these projects so we can deliver the liquefied natural gas to Europe, as we promised, in a timely fashion so that we can begin to reduce their dependency on Russian oil and stop sending billions of dollars to fund the Russian war machine. This is where energy security and national security come together. We need to lead our European allies in doing all we can to sanction Russian's energy sector. We have talked a lot about cutting off the natural gas and the revenue that fuels the war machine in Russia, but we also need to tighten up these bank sanctions as they relate to energy. As an example, it is simply unacceptable that sanctions against Russia's biggest banks, including VTB Bank, do not apply to energy transactions until June 24. This is simply too late. We need to act much more quickly. While President Biden was in Poland, inside Ukraine, Russian missiles were striking cities all across the country, including the western city of Lviv, not very far from the Polish border. President Biden must lead the alliance to redouble their efforts to stop this madness to ensure Russia is not rewarded for its war crimes. It is one thing to keep the alliance together; it is another to lead the alliance out of its comfort zone to a more aggressive stance to actually win this war. So in addition to the energy and other sanctions we have discussed tonight, what more can we and our allies do to help Ukraine win this war? And note I say ``win this war'' because if we act swiftly, I think we can help Ukraine actually win and keep Ukraine as a viable democracy and save thousands of lives. But they need our help, especially to stop the missiles and artillery that are raining down on civilians every day and every night. As we talk here tonight, this is happening in Ukraine. The Ukrainians have made it very clear they desperately need more air defense. President Zelenskyy talked about it again in the last 24 hours. Based on the news media reports, the United States is providing some SA-8s, an older, Soviet-era defense system, to Ukraine. I was glad to hear that. However, the media reports also say that the more capable S-300 Soviet-era systems we have in our inventory are not being sent. If this is true, this is a big disappointment and shows a lack of urgency. While I commend the President for the strong speech he delivered over the weekend, the actions of the administration have to match that rhetoric. There are additional weapons that they are desperately needing that we are not yet providing, particularly these anti-air systems and more munitions for their own anti-air systems. Often it is a matter of us facilitating the transfer of these weapons from former Warsaw Pact countries that are all along the border--the Eastern European, Central European countries that are close to Ukraine and can provide these incredibly important military anti-air systems, but we need to help them. We need to facilitate that and backfill their needs at home. They have asked for our help across the board, but specifically for tanks, for anti-ship systems, which is really important right now because so many of these missiles are coming from these ships in the Black Sea. President Zelenskyy needs to be listened to. He knows what they need. He says: We need more, and we need it more quickly. We must also keep sending Stinger missiles, which are effective at shooting down Russian helicopters and planes at lower altitudes. We must find ways to quickly provide Ukraine with more armed drones, such as the Turkish TB2s and one-use loitering munitions, which the Ukrainians know how to use and have been very effective on the battlefield with. Two weeks ago, it was announced that we were sending 100 so-called Switchblade loitering munitions. One hundred will go very quickly. We need to send more, and we need to send them quickly. To our Israeli friends, I would ask them to sell to us or other countries, and we should agree to buy, their Harop drones, which Ukraine could really use right now. The bottom line is we need to flood the zone when it comes to providing Ukraine with military assistance. They are not asking us to fight for them, but they are asking for the tools to be able to defend themselves, particularly with regard to this endless bombing. And they have a chance to win if we do that. There should be no gaps in our weapons transfers. We need to lead the NATO allies and others when it comes to providing and coordinating support. There are loopholes in the sanctions we talked about tonight. We need to do more to ensure that those are closed. We need to do more to ensure that the weapons are being received. We should act fast to let the people of Ukraine know with certainty that we do stand with them. The popular Ukrainian national rallying cry ``Slava Ukraini'' when translated into English is ``Glory to Ukraine.'' The response to it is ``Glory to the Heroes,'' ``Heroyam Slava.'' In the midst of this atrocity, there are so many heroes, and we need to back them up. There are so many heroes to glorify in Ukraine: the soldiers, professionals, and civilians who have taken up arms; the doctors and the nurses and the firefighters; and the volunteers providing food and water and blankets. We pray for them all, and we pray for their families. Godspeed to them in their simple quest, a battle for a free and independent Ukraine, a country that can chart its own course. America needs to stand with the people of Ukraine. We must show the world, both our adversaries and our allies, that we stand with Ukraine. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine as they suffer through the brutal and cowardly Russian assault. I have spoken on the floor each of the last 6 weeks about the horrific events we have all watched unfold and what role the United States should play. Simply put, we need to do more, and we need to do it more quickly, as do our allies. As we talk this evening, the shelling and killing of innocent civilians continues in the dark of night in places like Kyiv and Kharkiv and Mariupol, a beautiful port city being reduced to rubble by a frustrated Vladimir Putin. He seems intent on destroying what he can't have because of the brave, outgunned Ukrainians, who refuse to surrender and refuse to live under his despotic rule. Those heroic Ukrainian defenders of their homeland deserve our support. Even if they didn't, this bloody war launched by an authoritarian regime against a peaceful, democratic neighbor matters to world freedom, to our own national security. It must not stand, or else all of us in freedom-loving countries are at risk. As we talk this evening, the ruthless bombing continues. Something else is happening. President Biden is getting ready to cross the Atlantic to meet with our NATO partners to talk about next steps. Although nothing has done more to solidify the West than the ruthless Russian attacks, I commend President Biden for the important role he has played in helping keep the alliance together. Now, I call on him to lead that alliance to redouble their efforts to stop the madness, to ensure that Russia is not rewarded for its war crimes. It is one thing to keep the alliance together; it is another to lead the alliance out of its comfort zone to a more aggressive stance to actually win this war. I believe moving leaders to do more is possible because of all the deadly Russian escalation that we have seen but also because free citizens all around the world are shocked by the death and destruction that they see online and on TV every day, and they are speaking up. I see this at home in Ohio, but I see it all around the globe. I think leaders can be persuaded to do more. Over the past month, the administration itself has changed its mind and ratcheted up some sanctions and military assistance that we have advocated from both sides of the aisle from this Senate floor. To their credit, the administration reversed themselves and agreed to implement the Nord Stream 2 sanctions, to allow U.S. Stinger missiles to go to Ukraine directly from us, to impose the SWIFT banking sanctions, to ban oil from Russia, and to take away Russia's most favored nation trading status with us. Now, with Russia ramping up its brutal assault, targeting and killing thousands of innocent civilians, America and the free world must do more--as they bomb maternity hospitals and schools and a shopping center in Kyiv last night and bomb shelters filled with children. Last week, I led a bipartisan group of Senators to Poland and to the Ukrainian border, where we witnessed firsthand the pain that Russia is inflicting on innocent civilians. We talked to dozens of refugees-- almost always Ukrainian women and children, sometimes grandmothers and grandchildren. They came to Poland with only a backpack or a suitcase and nothing else, leaving everything else behind. In tears, they begged us to close the skies so the bombing would stop. They told of apartments or homes being destroyed, of the heartbreak of leaving their husbands or sons or fathers behind to fight the invaders. So what more can we and our allies do to help Ukraine win this war? Note, I say ``win this war.'' If we act swiftly, I think we can still defeat the Russians and keep Ukraine as a viable democracy. If we do too little, thousands will die, as will the dream of Ukrainian democracy. The forces of evil will win, and all of us will pay a price. Let me talk about five areas where I think we could do more to assist Ukraine. First, on the military side, we must redouble our efforts with urgency to provide Ukraine with the equipment and munitions and, where necessary, the immediate training to improve their air defenses and give them better offensive air capabilities. The decision whether to facilitate providing more MiG-29s from Poland and perhaps other allies in the region who have these Soviet-era airplanes has been hotly debated. In my view, we should have done it a long time ago, when we got the initial green light from the administration a few weeks ago. The Ukrainians have asked for them, and I do not believe they are any more escalatory than, certainly, the escalation that Russians are engaged in virtually every day. We now have reports of cluster bombs being used. We have reports of vacuum bombs being used against civilians. It is also no different than what we have done and continue to do with other weapon transfers, whether it is Stingers or Javelins or others. Remember, the Ukrainians are on defense here. They are just trying to protect their country. Give them what they say they need to defend themselves. I would hope that at least we could immediately facilitate spare parts and other assistance to keep the current Ukrainian planes flying. The Ukrainians have made it desperately clear that they need more air defense. We just learned today from public sources that the United States is providing SA8s, an older Soviet-era defense system, to Ukraine. Apparently, this is equipment that we got years ago--because it was the Soviet system--to be able to study it. We now have that system, and as of today, we have decided to send it to Ukraine. However, the same reporting also said that the more capable S-300 Soviet-era systems that we have are not being sent. Look, I am very glad these systems are going to protect innocent civilians, but, to me, this shows the lack of urgency that I was talking about earlier. Here we are on day 25 of this all-out war-- people dying every single day--and, finally, we have looked into the closet, and we have in the inventory these incredibly important air defense systems, and we are providing them? Where were they on day 5 or day 10 or day 15 or even day 20, with people dying every one of those 25 days? And why are we not sending the A300s? I don't know the answer to that. There may be an answer. There may be a reason I can't know what that answer is. But again, to me, this is an example of us having to have the urgency to respond and doing more and doing it more quickly. The United States can and should facilitate the transfer of former Warsaw bloc anti-aircraft systems that Ukrainians know how to operate, like the S-300, like the SA8s, the SA10s, and others. There are regional partners in the area, Eastern European countries, that have these systems, without going into detail. We should also provide extra munitions to replenish existing anti-air batteries. Our partners in the region say they are willing. Let's facilitate. Let's make it happen. Let's get the NATO countries that can help to help more. Over the weekend, there were reports, as an example, that Slovakia and Turkey were willing to take such action. We have got to be sure that we are ensuring these transfers take place immediately. Of course, we must also keep sending Stinger missiles, which are effective in shooting down Russian helicopters and the lower-flying jets. We must find ways to quickly provide Ukraine with more armed drones, such as the Turkish TB2, which has been very effective, apparently, and even one-use loitering munitions, which the Ukrainians know how to use and have been very effective with on the battlefield. Last week, it was announced that the United States was sending 100 of these loitering munitions, one-use munitions, called the Switchblade. One hundred will go very quickly. We should increase that number. Let's get the hundred there first, and let's increase that number to give the Ukrainians more to be able to defend themselves. To our Israeli friends--I know this is controversial--but I would ask them to consider selling us or other countries--and we should agree to buy--their Harop drones, which Ukraine could use right now. The bottom line is we need to flood the zone when it comes to providing Ukraine with military assistance. We are not being asked to fight this fight for them. They just want the tools to be able to defend themselves and have a chance--a fighting chance--to be able to win. There should be no gaps in our weapon transfers, and we need to lead our NATO allies and others when it comes to providing and coordinating support. Second, we need more sanctions. We need to implement them faster. The sanctions have to bite now, not 2 weeks from now or 2 months from now. We need to remove all Russian banks' access to the global financial system. Russia must be financially cut off from the rest of the world if we are to have the effect that we want to have. Even without using our full sanctions authority, we have already seen some of the pain that we can inflict. However, there are loopholes in these sanctions. It is not enough to go after individual banks, such as VTB and Sberbank. We are told that the Kremlin has already transitioned payments from these banks through Rosbank, UniCredit, and Raiffeisen. We need blocking sanctions on all of Russia's finance and defense industry as long as Russian forces are in Ukraine. We need to exert maximum pressure to ensure no money can be sent to Russia to fund its war effort. We must implement full blocking sanctions on all Russian banks and ensure energy transactions are not exempt from these transactions. Russia should not be allowed to use its oil and gas profits to kill innocent Ukrainians. We can also target the way Russia, including individuals close to President Putin, currently evade sanctions. In 2020, when I was chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, we published a bipartisan report showing how sanctioned oligarchs continued to have access to the U.S. financial system, in this case, through the purchase of high-value art. The two oligarchs we investigated were sanctioned in 2014 following Russia's invasion of Crimea. You have heard that those sanctions weren't particularly effective. This is one reason. They laundered their money through art. They continued to purchase millions in art through auction houses and dealers in New York after they were sanctioned. In that report, we recommended Congress should amend the Bank Secrecy Act to require art dealers to confirm the identity of buyers and sellers in transactions to ensure they are not using the art purchases to launder money or evade sanctions. These are the same requirements we place on financial institutions. Those changes are now more urgently needed than ever. The European Union and the United Kingdom recently closed this loophole by requiring businesses handling art transactions valued at 10,000 pounds or more to comply with anti-money laundering laws, including verifying the identity of the seller, buyer, and ultimate beneficial owner of the art so that the purchase isn't being used to evade sanctions. Since the EU and UK have tightened compliance, the United States, which has the largest art market in the world, becomes now the main target for sanctioned Russians to continue to evade sanctions and launder money through high-value art purchases. If the administration doesn't move on this, we are currently drafting legislation to close this loophole in the U.S. Senate. Third, on tax treatment, we should suspend our tax treaty with Moscow and explore options to remove other tax benefits from Russian businesses. The United States has income tax treaties with a number of foreign countries to facilitate investment and prevent double taxation of residents and businesses which operate in both countries. Under these tax treaties, residents, not necessarily citizens, of foreign countries are generally taxed at a reduced rate or exempt on certain items of income. It is important to note that these treaties reduce U.S. taxes on Russian residents and businesses, but they generally don't reduce the taxes of U.S. citizens or U.S. treaty residents. Instead, they would reduce Russian taxes for U.S. citizens. President Biden has the constitutional authority to suspend our tax treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation. We need to pursue all options to isolate Russia and make it clear that there are consequences for their actions. The tax treaty is one more way to do that. We should also follow the UK and suspend the exchange and sharing of tax information with Russia and Belarus. With Russia's hostile actions toward Ukraine, we should no longer incentivize U.S. investment in Russia or provide preferential tax treatment for Russian investment in the United States. Fourth, on trade, there are two additional things we can do to bring pressure on President Putin and his allies. Access to our market is a privilege, not a right, and we should not give Russia the normal access. The House passed a law to suspend what is called ``most favored nation,'' or PNTR, for Russia last week, which some in the Senate oppose because it does not contain a statutory ban on Russian energy imports. Currently, the energy import ban can be undone at the whim of a President, rather than the legislative criteria about the restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty and the cessation of hostilities. So I agree with putting it in statute. I think that would be a good idea. But I also believe the urgency of the moment means that we have to find a way to stop preferred access to our market. Let's do it this week. The International Trade Commission should also bring the full might of U.S. trade remedy law to bear on Russian companies which trade unfairly, similar to how we treat Chinese companies. Last week, I sent a bipartisan letter with Senator Brown to the ITC on this topic. The Commission is required by law to consider ``all relevant economic factors which have a bearing on the state of the industry in the United States.'' Given Russia's behavior, including its manipulation of trade flows in pursuit of malign strategic objectives and exceptional involvement of the state in the domestic economy, we ask the Commission to take these into account in cases involving Russia when they violate our trade laws. The Commerce Department should reclassify Russia as a nonmarket economy, making it easier to bring unfair trade cases against them. It is appropriate to reclassify them because up to 77 percent of their economy is now run by the government. Commerce was asked to reclassify in the fall but retained Russia as a market economy, allegedly after a Russian delegation pressured the Biden administration. In light of the invasion, Commerce should reconsider that decision and ensure that Russia is reclassified as a nonmarket economy. Now a handful of countries, like China and Belarus, are in that category. This means these countries don't have a free market. Instead, they have policies that restrict the flow of capital, involve government in the running of the economy, and don't allow wages to be set by free bargaining between labor and management. When a country is a nonmarket economy, it means our trade enforcers have an easier time of being tougher on those countries when they sell products here that are unfairly priced. It is time to do it. Fifth, and maybe most important and most difficult, we need to lead our European allies on fully sanctioning Russia's energy sector. Russia's war machine is funded primarily through energy sales, including natural gas and oil to Europe. Probably the best way to persuade those persuadable in Russia is to cut off those resources, as we are doing here in the United States. It is going to be a lot more difficult for our allies in Europe to do that because many are dependent on Russian energy. But there are many steps the United States and other allies, like Qatar, can take to expand energy production here at home and help our allies abroad. LNG export contracts need to be finalized now and the export and import terminals quickly expanded. And that can be done. Further, the Treasury Department's announcement that sanctions against Russia's biggest banks, including VTB Bank, do not apply to energy transactions until June 24--June 24 may be too late. That is unacceptable. We need to change that Treasury Department approach to sanctions against those biggest banks and ensure that we are applying them to energy transactions as soon as possible. I would advocate for a similar approach in how we designated Iranian entities in 2018 when we left JCPOA. We did not issue sanctions waivers to European companies that continued to do business with Iran's economy, and that forced those companies to leave Iran's market, even though European governments weren't particularly supportive of that. That is what happened. Some countries in Europe have not done enough to diversify their energy future in light of this invasion, which they are now financing, again, through the purchase of Russian gas. It can't be business as usual. We need to figure out a way to stop that revenue. By the way, there is a connection between the Iran deal and Ukraine. Under the new Iran deal, secondary sanctions will be lifted on the Central Bank of Iran and all other Iranian financial institutions, enabling transactions between Russia and Iran, to include the Central Bank of Russia, Sberbank, and others. In other words, the Iran nuclear deal guarantees that Russia can use a sanctions-free Iran as a sanctions-evasion oasis. This should not stand. The administration needs to reverse course here. Sanctioning Russia because of the barbaric war in Ukraine and then giving them a pass when it comes to the Iran nuclear deal is contradictory to our foreign policy interests. At the very least, this proposed treaty needs to be submitted to Congress as is required by law so that we can analyze that issue and make a decision. We need to do more, and we need to do it quickly. I have outlined some of the actions we can take, and we should act fast to let the people of Ukraine know we stand with them. The popular Ukrainian rallying cry ``Slava Ukraini,'' when translated into English, is ``Glory to Ukraine.'' ``Slava Ukraini,'' to which the response is ``Glory to the Heroes,'' ``Heroyam Slava.'' In the midst of this atrocity, there are so many heroes to glorify in Ukraine: the soldiers, professionals, and civilians, alike, doctors and nurses and firefighters and the volunteers who are providing food and water and blankets. We pray for them all. We pray for their families. Godspeed to the people of Ukraine in their simple and profound quest, a battle for a free and independent Ukraine. We must show the world that America supports that simple quest, that we stand with Ukraine. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor again today to stand with the people of Ukraine. What Russia is doing to Ukraine and its citizens is an atrocity. Ukraine is an American ally and an independent and democratic country of 41 million people who simply want to live in peace. The Russian invasion is an illegal, unprovoked, and brutal assault that, over the past 19 days since the full-scale invasion began, has targeted and killed thousands of civilians. Americans have seen this atrocity in realtime with horrific videos online or on our television screens. The videos and photos have sometimes been shocking. Remember the one of the woman who was on a stretcher, pregnant, leaving the maternity hospital that had been bombed by the Russians. We now learned that that woman and her baby have died. Today we learned that more journalists have been killed, including an American journalist, a FOX News cameraperson. I just returned last night from a bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Poland, neighboring Ukraine. I was joined on that trip by Senator Klobuchar, Senator Wicker, and Senator Blumenthal. I see Senator Wicker is here on the floor. Senator Blumenthal is also here. Senator Klobuchar has a conflict. She wanted to be here, but she is going to be submitting her statement for the record to join us tonight. We had a very emotional trip because we talked to a lot of the refugees coming out of Ukraine, talked about the incredible trauma they are going through. We also got some very sobering briefings when we were over there from our own team but also from the Polish Government, from people who were helping the refugees. It is a very difficult situation. Poland is doing what they can to help their neighbor. They have a special bond with Ukraine, and they are doing a lot. In fact, most of the nearly 2 million refugees who have fled Ukraine because of this invasion and the brutal attacks have come to Poland, where they have been met with open hearts and open homes. Literally, people in Poland are opening up their homes to these refugees. We were at the border, where some of these Polish families have come to welcome Ukrainians into their apartments, into their homes. In addition to briefings from our U.S. Embassy team in Poland; the U.S. Embassy team from Ukraine, who is now in Poland; the U.S. military in Poland; and the Polish Government, we did go down to the border between Ukraine and Poland to meet with the border officials from Poland, U.S. and Polish international relief organizations, and, of course, with the refugees themselves who were streaming across the border. Roughly, 100 refugees every minute are leaving Ukraine. It was heartbreaking to hear their stories. You can imagine. We spoke to them at the border crossing but also a couple miles away at what is called the reception center, a convention center that has been converted into a place where thousands of refugees can come, get a good night's sleep, maybe stay for a few days or even a few weeks, find food, find healthcare, find mental health treatment. Most of this, by the way, has been donated. The Polish people have donated bed sheets and blankets and quilts. We worked there as volunteers with what is called the World Central Kitchen, something actually a Washington, DC, chef, Jose Andres, has set up at natural disaster areas to help feed people. He is now doing this on the border with Ukraine and in Ukraine. In fact, he has about 20 different World Central Kitchens set up. This one was at this reception center being used by refugee families who need to find some comfort and food, as they have made a long trek, in many cases, across Ukraine to get there. There are also lots of displaced people in Ukraine itself, and those people are being helped by the same group, this World Central Kitchen. I thank them. I thank all the volunteers who give them support and help so that they can lend a hand at these reception centers and help these refugees along their way. I also thank so many other volunteers we saw there from every organization: Catholic relief organizations, other faith-based organizations, the World Health Organization, and others. We were at the border only about 6 hours after the Russian missiles had attacked and killed at least 35 and wounded more than 130 at a Ukrainian training center just 15 miles away. The border guards said they had felt the Earth tremble when the bombing attack occurred, again, just several hours before we got there. This was the first Russian attack so close to the western border with Europe and so close to a NATO ally, a potentially dangerous new phase of the Russian assault. We met refugees there from all over the country, the vast majority of whom were mothers with their children, sometimes grandmothers with their grandchildren. Men between 18 and 60 are required to stay and fight, so we heard some really tough stories about families being split apart and moms and wives and sisters wondering whether their sons and husbands and brothers who were in harm's way were still alive. Some refugees had traveled by bus, some by foot, some on trains. Some had come over Ukraine for several days. They told of heart-wrenching stories of their homes being destroyed, of friends and family being wounded by the indiscriminate Russian bombing of civilian areas. They had backpacks or small suitcases; that is it. They had to travel and travel quickly and travel light. They left everything else behind, including, again, in some cases, family members. Some, again, had been traveling for several days. One family we met from the eastern part of Ukraine said it had been over 2 weeks. Some who lived close to the border had only made the difficult decision to leave their homes that very morning after the bombing of the training center 15 miles away. Refugees spoke with tears in their eyes about the pain of leaving their homeland, and all the families I spoke with said they want to go back when it is safe. Many said they appreciated what America had done, but just about every single refugee we talked to asked that the United States of America and other countries around the world do more particularly to stop the deadly bombing of civilian targets and the senseless destructions of their towns and cities. In particular, they begged us to close the skies, as they said: Keep us from getting bombarded. Stop the carnage. They were very proud of the courage of the Ukrainian soldiers--they are patriots--and, of course, of the citizen soldiers, sometimes including their own family who have stepped forward. They were proud of the bravery and leadership of President Zelenskyy. But consistent with what we have heard from the military experts on the trip and what many of us have heard directly from President Zelenskyy, these families, these refugees--the grandmothers, the mothers--said the ability to provide better air cover with more and better ways to protect them is what they really want. What President Zelenskyy and others have said is better anti-air systems, better ways to protect against missile attacks, anti-missile systems, drones, airplanes--that that is the single most important thing we can do to save lives and give Ukrainian military fighters, the civilian soldiers we talked about--professional soldiers--give them a chance, give them a fighting chance. Other countries on the frontlines also need to know we are with them, especially our NATO allies, because they are nervous, as you can imagine. While in Poland, we met with hundreds of 82nd Airborne troops who have come to Poland in the past couple of weeks, along with some troops from other NATO countries. We have gone from about 5,000 U.S. troops in Poland to about 10,000 troops over the past couple weeks, and the Polish Government and the Polish people are deeply appreciative. They believe that this it is a deterrent to Russia making an even bigger mistake and coming into their country. We received extensive briefings from the Polish Government but also from the 82nd Airborne, and we were able to join troops for dinner to hear directly from them. I was fortunate there were a lot of Ohioans there, and hearing from them made me very, very proud that they were willing to step forward and serve their country in this way. We listened carefully to everybody. We listened to the refugees, listened to the humanitarian aid workers, listened to the U.S. diplomats, to the military experts, as well as the Polish military officials. There were differences of opinion, to be sure, on some of the specifics but actually broad agreement on the ongoing role the United States can play. Based on what we learned, the following steps should be taken immediately. First, on the military side, we have got to redouble our efforts to provide Ukraine with the equipment and the munitions they need and, where necessary, the immediate training to provide the air defenses they need to give them better capability--defense and offense. Whether to facilitate providing more MiG-29s from Poland or not has been hotly debated in this past week. In my view, we should have done it when it got that initial green light from part of this Biden administration because the Ukrainians asked for them, and I don't believe they are any more escalatory, certainly, than the escalation the Russians are engaged in virtually every day and what we have done and continue to do on other weapon transfers. So we should have done it immediately and quietly. But the administration seems to have dug in on this for now, and it has become too much of a public debate. I would hope that at least they would facilitate spare parts and other assistance to keep the current Ukrainian planes flying. Perhaps more promising is to immediately help Ukraine bolster its anti-air systems. The United States can and should facilitate the transfer of Soviet-era anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems so the Ukrainians know how to operate them. And there are a number of regional partners that have this equipment. Without going into detail, this should also include extra munitions to replenish existing anti-air batteries that the Ukrainians have. In conjunction with transferring anti-air systems and aircraft, we need to continue to provide Stingers and enhancements to them. All can be useful in shooting down the Russian fighters and the missiles that are raining bombs on innocent Ukraine civilians and causing so much needless death and destruction. We must find ways to quickly provide Ukraine with more armed drones, such as the Turkish TB2, which the Ukrainians know how to use and have been devastatingly effective on the battlefield already. Especially now that Congress has passed the omnibus spending bill with a bump-up for defense and specific additional security systems for Ukraine and higher drawdown authority for the President, there can be no excuse for a gap in the flow of arms to Ukraine. We want to be sure that this is seamless. As we complete one tranche of help to Ukraine, there cannot be a gap before we do another. We must move more quickly. Ukraine needs this help. It is a matter of hours and days, not a matter of weeks or months. In addition to the items mentioned above, this also means more anti- tank Javelin missiles but also small arms, munitions, body armor, communications equipment, anti-tank, mining, anti-ship weapons, and more so the brave Ukrainian soldiers can continue to protect their country and their citizens. Before I talk about the second part of this, which is the humanitarian side of this effort, I would like to ask my colleagues, whom I see are here on the floor with me, if they have any comments particularly about what Ukraine needs right now in terms of military assistance to be able to be effective or other comments that they might have.

Mr. PORTMAN. The gentleman will yield.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, first I want to say that I appreciate my colleagues being on the floor tonight and their really moving statements about the crisis in Ukraine and the atrocities that are being committed there. And I think what you did tonight is you added a lot of texture and perspective to the resolution that just passed this body by a unanimous vote. Nobody objected. We are now on record here in this body with a strong statement of support for Ukraine and strong opposition to the atrocities being committed and our commitment to do more. So, again, I appreciated being with you in Poland, and I appreciated your coming to the floor tonight. I am going to pick up where I had left off and talk a little more about what we can do because that is the real question that faces us here in the U.S. Senate. We talked a lot about military assistance tonight, and we, again, I think, had a consensus among us as to what we need to do to help the Ukrainians protect themselves, particularly from the aerial assault that they are under. I know we also have another colleague who couldn't be here on the floor because of scheduling concerns, as I said earlier, Senator Klobuchar, but she will be making a statement for the record that will go along with our statements tonight. I look forward to seeing that. The four of us got in at about midnight last night, and we come back with a heavy heart but also lots of advice for our government as to how we can do more. On the humanitarian side, the United States has got a key role to play as well, not just on military assistance but on ensuring that people who are fleeing this conflict and people internally displaced have the help they need. We support our European partners who have opened their homes, as I said earlier, and their borders to Ukrainian refugees. In fact, they have provided a 3-year visa, in essence, to Ukrainians in the European Union and permission to work, and this is, I think, a strong signal of the special relationship that the countries of the EU feel toward Ukraine, which I hope someday will be a member of the European Union, as do they. Congress just passed some immediate help for Ukraine. It was in legislation called the Omnibus appropriations bill a few days ago. That will help AID here in the United States and other organizations around the world be able to help with these refugees and help those Ukrainians who are trapped in cities under siege. To me this is the No. 1 priority right now. Cities like Mariupol--you probably read that people have been without food and water for days--for days. There was a child--a girl, apparently--who died of dehydration recently, and others are going to be finding themselves in an impossible situation, not knowing where their next meal may come from. So we need to help them, particularly in these cities in the east and the south of the country that are under such terrible siege and being surrounded. This is an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, and it is being caused by Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine--Vladimir Putin's war and Russia's war. The actions that they have undertaken have created the largest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II. That is already. By the way, I favor seizing, rather than freezing, the assets of Kremlin officials and oligarchs and then providing those proceeds to the refugees. Doesn't that make sense? So when a billionaire has his assets frozen, it is one thing; but when they are seized, as some countries have done--France, Germany--the United States needs to step up and do that as well. We should be leading on this, not following. That is another thing that we can do to help get proceeds to help with the humanitarian efforts. But I also have a message tonight to those Russian officials and to the Russian commanders on the ground, which is that you have a choice to make. You can stop this atrocity. You can refuse the orders to kill innocent civilians. You can stop this atrocity that has already taken the lives of thousands of civilians--men, women and children, your neighbors--your neighbors--some with family connections to Russia, who want nothing more than just to live in peace. You can stop this atrocity. Disobey the orders. The world is watching, and the war crimes are being recorded. You have a choice. On sanctions: We talked a little bit about this earlier tonight, but we need more and faster sanctions. We need to remove all Russian banks from their access to the global financial system. Russia must be financially cut off from the rest of the world, or it won't work. We have already seen the pain that we can inflict using a portion of our sanction authority. We need to do more. We need to exert maximum pressure to ensure no money can be sent to Russia to fund the war effort. This is one reason it was so important that we finally stopped the importation of Russian oil and gas. Why would we want to send $40- or $50 million a day, which we were sending to Russia to be used for the war machine. But we can implement full blocking sanctions on all Russian banks, and we can ensure that energy transactions are not exempt from these sanctions. That is very important, because right now there are some exemptions for energy. Russia should not use its oil profits to kill innocent Ukrainians. That should be our principle. We should not allow money to flow down like water in cracks in the pavement. We should pass legislation to ensure that these funds stop--and not by June 24, which is in the sanctions that the administration has put forward, but now--blocking sanctions now, not for the energy sector transactions on June 24. That is too long. I think we should move ahead with legislation to cut off most- favored-nation treatment. This is the permanent trade relationship with Russia we granted back in 2012, bringing them into the World Trade Organization. Access to the U.S. market is a privilege, not a right. And we should not only ensure that we are not giving Russia that privilege of access to our markets--lower tariffs of all kinds of products, including oil and gas--but also that other countries of the world follow suit. That way it would be much more effective. But I would like to go beyond most-favored-nation treatment tonight and suggest that we also suspend our tax treaty with Russia. Why would we want to have a tax treaty that provides tax benefits to Russian businesses? Again, our principle there could be no tax breaks for invaders. That would make more sense. We also need to sanction the Russian energy sector with currency and blocking sanctions, as I said, right now--not June 24. I know this is more difficult on the Europeans who are more dependent on Russia for energy, but there are many steps the United States can take to help expand energy production here at home and help our allies abroad. I met with someone today who is trying to set up LNG terminals in places like Germany and also Ireland and other countries to bring liquefied natural gas to Europe. We have plenty of natural gas in this country. We are blessed with it. We should use it to help our allies. Finally, I would like to advocate for a similar approach to how we designated Iranian entities in 2018, when we left the JCPOA. We did not issue sanctions or waivers to European companies that continued to do business with Iran's economy. We forced those companies to leave Iran's market, even at the displeasure of some of those governments. The bottom line: It can't be business as usual. There is a popular Ukrainian national rallying cry, ``Slava Ukraini!'' When translated into English, it means ``Glory to Ukraine.'' ``Slava Ukraini.'' There is a response to that rallying cry, which is ``Glory to the Heroes.'' ``Heroiam Slava.'' So ``Slava Ukraini'' and in response, ``Heroiam Slava.'' And even in these dark times, there are many heroes. While we heard firsthand about the worst of humanity represented by the brutal bombings of civilian targets, we also saw the best of humanity at work. And we saw acts of kindness and generosity: Polish border guards helping carry suitcases of mothers who were overwhelmed as they carried young children in their arms, fleeing from the only home they have ever known; volunteers at the reception center where they provided healthcare and lodging and served thousands of meals a day to frightened and bewildered families who were waiting to move on to homes that generous Poles, Germans, and others in the EU had opened up for them. In the midst of this atrocity, there are so many heroes to glorify in Ukraine. Yes, glory to the heroes: the brave border guards on Snake Island; the grandmother bravely walking up to Russian soldiers and handing them sunflower seeds, saying: If you don't leave, this is so that something beautiful will grow on your grave; the courageous President of Ukraine who when asked by western countries if they could help him escape, responded simply: ``I need ammunition, not a ride.'' ``I need ammunition, not a ride.'' President Zelenskyy's bravery and resilience has been an inspiration to Ukrainians and freedom-loving people everywhere. Tomorrow, he will be here virtually in a joint session of Congress to talk to all of us, and I look forward to it. Glory to the everyday heroes who are caring for the wounded, feeding desperate families huddling in basements and subway stations, glory to the professional soldiers and citizens alike who have taken up arms and are putting their lives on the line to defend their beloved homeland in the cause of freedom, against great odds. Glory to the heroes. Heroiam Slava. Godspeed to them in their battle for a free and independent Ukraine. Some may ask--and some of my colleagues here have asked me: Why does a Senator from Ohio get involved in Ukraine? Why do you care? Well, tens of thousands of Ukrainian Americans call Ohio home, as do hundreds of thousands of others who trace their family to that part of the world; and it is an honor to represent them and their values. I stood together with a thousand fellow Ohioans at a prayer service and rallied for Ukraine 2 weeks ago in Parma, OH, just outside of Cleveland. We prayed for family and friends in Ukraine who are in harm's way. We prayed for the courageous Ukrainian troops and asked for God's wisdom and blessing on the duly elected Government of Ukraine and, of course, for the protection of President Zelenskyy. Ohioans like Andy Futey and Marta Liscynesky are rallying support across our State and coordinating efforts to provide humanitarian relief to those in need in Ukraine and in neighboring European countries. They are heading up through the United Ukrainian Organizations of Ohio a fund called the Fund to Aid Ukraine. I contributed to it. They do great work. Two weeks ago, Sunday, I was honored to speak at an emotional rally in Washington, DC, much like the one in Parma, OH, only larger. Again, many Ohioans were there. And this past weekend on the border between Ukraine and Poland, Ohioans were there volunteering. But even if I didn't have a single constituent of Ukrainian descent, I would be standing shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine because this fight is our fight. This is where, in our generation at this time, all freedom-loving people are called to defend what we hold dear. Eight years ago, Ukrainians made a choice. They stood up to a corrupt Russian-backed government. They stood up for freedom, for free markets, for peace and prosperity, and for the rule of law. They looked to America, and they looked to the EU. They chose freedom over tyranny. They chose a democracy over an authoritarian regime. I was there in 2014, right after the Heavenly Hundred who stood up to the corrupt Russian-backed government were killed in what was called the Euromaidan or the Revolution of Dignity. I saw firsthand then the commitment the people of Ukraine had to freedom and independence, to charting their own course. Right now, those friends in Ukraine need our help. We cannot let this call to action go unanswered. We cannot sit by and watch as innocent civilians are brutally killed. America and our allies must stand up for freedom, and the world is watching. Our friends are watching. Our adversaries are watching. We must show them that America stands with Ukraine. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I am proud to be a champion of the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act--or HABHRCA-- program. The program was first created in 1998 to help address harmful algal blooms in water bodies across the country. Congress recognized the devastating impact of harmful algal blooms, both ecologically and economically, and the importance of providing resources to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to advance scientific understanding of harmful algal blooms, as well as the ability to detect, monitor, assess, and predict bloom events. In 2014 and again in 2018, I worked with then-Senator Bill Nelson to reauthorize the program in a bipartisan way. And in the 2014 legislation, I worked to ensure that freshwater bodies, specifically the Great Lakes, were a focus for the program for the first time. Since then, I have worked to secure funding for the HABHRCA program through the annual appropriations process. I am pleased to report that, today, NOAA's work through the HABHRCA program is being used by my constituents and others across the Great Lakes basin. For example, I hear from the fishing and charter boat industries that they rely on NOAA's biweekly forecasts to monitor the location of the blooms so they know what areas of the lake to avoid in order to continue operating their tourism and fishing businesses. It also helps our drinking water systems prevent contamination in drinking water because they are able to anticipate additional treatment needs if the location of the bloom is near a water intake valve. This will help prevent crises similar to the 2014 water crisis in Toledo, OH, in which nearly half a million people lost access to safe drinking water because a harmful algal bloom contaminated the city's water supply. As cochair of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, I am committed to ensuring our Great Lakes communities have the resources they need to create jobs and protect the water quality and health of the lakes. My colleague from Florida, Senator Rubio, has a bill that would amend the HABHRCA program to require NOAA to conduct harmful algal bloom and hypoxia work specifically for the South Florida ecosystem. I am supportive of this legislation and of efforts to address harmful algal blooms across the country, so long as it does not take away or divert resources that are used in the Great Lakes. To that end, I ask for unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from NOAA Administrator Spinrad committing that the work done in South Florida, such as would be the case with passage of Senator Rubio's legislation, S. 66, the South Florida Clean Coastal Waters Act, would have no impact on the resources and work currently being conducted to support the Great Lakes.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments from my colleague from Rhode Island. I would say ``all of the above'' energy, so I do support the energy efficiency he was talking about and other opportunities to ensure we have the ability to be energy independent. But at a time when the price per gallon is over $4, on average, we also need to produce more in this country. And here we are at a time where we have an Executive order from the President, saying we are going to freeze all leases on public lands and waters. We have an Executive order from the President, obviously, stopping Keystone XL Pipeline. We have an Executive action by the President to rewrite the policies with regard to permitting that are in the waters of the United States that are very important to energy projects. So we have got to do it all because, otherwise, without certainty, we are not going to get the oil and gas production we should have here to be able to substitute what we are getting from places like Russia. The President did the right thing by banning the Russian oil, but we ought to also be doing the right thing with regard to North American production. I stand today to support the Postal Service bill that is before us. We are nearing the end of a long journey to help the Postal Service and to help the Postmaster General to be able to implement needed reforms. Last year, Senator Peters--who I see is on the floor here--and I introduced the Senate version of the Postal Reform Act. We had 28 cosponsors, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. Why? Because the Postal Service is not a partisan issue. It is something that all of us should agree on. We need to save our Postal Service; otherwise, we are going to be in big trouble. In the next few years, I believe it would go insolvent otherwise. I believe we would be here talking about a big bailout. This is not a bailout. In fact, there is no appropriation in this legislation. The post office is really important to my constituents--young, old, rural, urban, everybody. That is why we have seen such strong bipartisan support when this bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 342 to 92--that rarely happens in the House--and strong bipartisan support last night when the Senate cloture vote was 74 to 17. Saving the post office is the right thing to do. Let's face it. The fact of the matter is, the Postal Service is delivering less and less more profitable first-class mail to more and more places. That economic model just does not work, and that is a recipe for ruin if we don't adjust to this new reality and make some necessary changes. Is it hard to make changes? Of course, it is, but it is the right thing to do. We have talked about it for years here. Finally, we came together, Republican and Democrat, neither of us got exactly what we wanted, both had to make concessions, but we were actually doing the right thing for the country here in saving the post office. And I regularly hear about this from my constituents across Ohio; I am sure you hear the same. You hear it from your veterans. You hear it from some of your rural residents who depend on the post office for a lot, including their lifesaving medications. Families rely on the post office to deliver their rent checks on time, to pay their utility bills, to get their Social Security checks. In Ohio, we have got no-excuse absentee voting. That has worked really well for over a decade now. But if you are a voter in Ohio, you want to get your application in time, and you want to get your ballot in, in time. That all depends on the post office. Small businesses in Ohio reach their customers primarily through direct mail now; that is through the post office. So this is really important that we put the post office on a sound financial footing. And, by the way, it can't be done just with an act of Congress. What we are doing is complementing what the Postmaster General and the postal Board is doing in terms of serious reforms at the post office. They work together. In fact, the Postmaster General said this bill he strongly supports because it gives him the headroom he needs, the financial breathing room he needs to make the other important reforms to save the post office. What do we do? First, we eliminate a very burdensome prefunding requirement for retiree health benefits. Congress mandated this a decade or so ago. Regardless of age, current employees have to be prefunded. This has crippled the post office financially. By the way, no other Federal Agency has to do this, and private sector companies don't do this. This is prefunding. The money will be there, but it is a matter of having to prefund it that is crippling the post office financially. Second, we require the post office employees who are retiring, who have been paying into Medicare their entire careers, to enroll in Medicare Part B and to access Part D--something, by the way, that almost every private sector employer does. They are already in Part A. Third, we require the Postal Service to maintain its current standard of a 6-day-a-week delivery through an integrated delivery network of mail and packages together so that those who rely on the Postal Service for their medications and other important needs are properly served. That 6-day-a-week delivery, by the way, is really important to my constituents and to a lot of your constituents if you talk to them about it, particularly in the rural areas. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that after all of this, this bill will result in a savings to the taxpayer. The savings over the next 10 years is $1.5 billion. I would also like to note what this bill does not do because there has been some misinformation out there. One, it does not appropriate new funds to the post office, period. Two, it does not change the accounting or costing structure for packages and letters so it does not disadvantage private-sector carriers. That is very important to me. This is the status quo that we are putting in place here. It does not change the accounting or costing structure for packages and letters. Third, it does not allow the Postal Service to enter into new commercial services like postal banking. That is also very important to me. And contrary to the claims of this bill's opponents, this bill does not impact the solvency of the Medicare hospital trust fund. That is the trust fund we all talk about. It is going belly-up in 2026. It does not affect it, period. CBO has actually written us something saying that, but it just makes sense. People are already in Part A. And this bill does not increase the Medicare Part B and Part D premiums based on the CBO analysis. Why? Partly because it is such a small number of people. Only 25 percent of postal employees were not already in Part B and Part D, so additional ones make very little difference. But part of it is they are paying their premiums. So let's pass this bill. We also have a budget point of order before us that is coming up next. I want to be clear, again, CBO's estimated $1.5 billion savings over the 10-year budget window that we have to use around here. However, CBO has estimated that this legislation would likely increase on budget deficits by $5 billion or more in at least one of the four 10-year periods beginning in 2032. I would like to make three quick points: First, none of this deficit is related to the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund for Part A. Again, that is the trust fund that we talk about a lot here because we are concerned about it, and it could be exhausted as early as 2026. CBO has said that trust fund will not be affected. Second, CBO's deficit only addresses on-budget direct spending. It actually excludes all future savings to the post office, which are off-budget. Let me give you an example of that. The premiums that Postal Service employees are going to pay, that is not part of the calculation. Third, and finally, this budget point of order ignores that postal workers are entitled to Medicare Part B and Part D like any other eligible American worker. The bill simply requires future Postal Service retirees to access these benefits; the 25 percent that don't already do it. Private-sector employers require their retirees to do the same thing. Of course, no one raises these budget points of orders on them. Right now, the post office is in trouble, folks, and if we don't do something and do something significant, working with the post office to make their own internal reforms, we are going to be in big trouble as I said earlier. Let's move forward on this bill. Let's make sure the post office is healthy going forward for all of our constituents. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Postal Service bill before us. It is important reform. People know this needs to be done. The vote in the House of Representatives was 342 to 92. It has to be done because the Postal Service's business model just doesn't work-- having to deliver more and more packages and fewer and fewer more profitable first-class mail pieces to more and more addresses. So we have got to do something to reform it. Let me tell you what this bill does do and what it doesn't do--first of all, what it does not do. It is not an appropriation, so there is no money here going into the Postal Service from the taxpayer. It does not change the accounting or the cost structure for packages and letters. That way, it does not disadvantage the private sector carriers some were worried about. It also does not allow the Postal Service to enter into new commercial services like postal banking that we are against. Contrary to claims of some of the opponents, it actually does not impact the solvency of the trust fund. So the Medicare hospital trust fund we all worry about, predicted to expire in about 2026, this does not affect it at all. Postal Service employees are already in Part A. And it does not increase the Part B or the Part D premiums. What this does do is it saves the post office, which is incredibly important to all of our constituents--to our veterans who get their prescription drugs through the mail, to people who are voting by mail, and to people who are relying on the Postal Service to provide them with what they need to be able to survive. This is an important bill that has been worked on for 15 years. I thank my colleague Senator Peters from Michigan for working on a bipartisan basis on this. Let's get it done tonight.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I come to the Senate floor today to once again talk about the crisis in Ukraine and what we can do here to help. Night has fallen in Ukraine and in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other cities and towns. All through Ukraine, the bombing continues, the bombardment--artillery shells, missiles. Thousands of innocent Ukrainians have already lost their lives. We cannot let this stand. We need to work with our allies to stop these atrocities. By the way, all over the country, people are standing up and speaking out. A week ago Sunday, I was in Ohio with a thousand people--mostly Ukrainians, Americans of Ukrainian descent, but also people from everyplace: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, and so many other countries, and people who have been Americans for generations--who were standing together to say: This cannot stand. We had a prayer vigil and a demonstration. The prayer vigil was in a huge church, but it was an overflow crowd pouring out into the streets. Yesterday, I came to Washington to join such a rally. It was in front of the White House, and again it included so many Ukrainians, including from Ohio, but so many others as well. The rallying cry was: We are all Ukrainians today because we all believe in democracy and freedom and the right for a country to chart its own course and for people to be independent and free. We had rabbis there; we had ministers there; we had clergy there from four or five different denominations--again, praying for the people of Ukraine. We were all standing together, hoping that through joint action, we can help during these dark days for the people of Ukraine. We prayed for protection for those in harm's way, of course. We prayed for the courageous Ukrainian troops, some of whom are civilian soldiers who have just joined the armed forces for the first time. Some are seasoned professional soldiers, and we prayed for their protection--all of them. We asked for God's wisdom and blessing on the duly-elected Government of Ukraine--again, duly-elected. We prayed for strength and resolve for President Zelenskyy and for his protection. He has been amazing. He has been resolute and courageous, and he has shown the Ukrainian people that the way forward was just to stand up to these barbarous acts. If you care about America, you should care about Ukraine. Every freedom-loving country should care because in Ukraine today is where the fight for freedom is being waged. It is not just about Ukraine; it is also about the rest of the countries in Eastern Europe, of course-- Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, those countries. But it is also about the entire world, isn't it? It is about, can an authoritarian government step into a free, independent government and take over territory and kill its citizens? By the way, Ukraine wants nothing but to live in peace. They are not looking to attack anybody. They just want to be able to lead a life where they can, in peace, pursue their dreams. Just today, during the negotiations between the Ukrainian Government and the Russian Government, the Russian Federation, the Russians said that they would only allow humanitarian corridors to go from these cities that they are bombing, where they are killing civilians--they would only allow humanitarian corridors to go into Russia or into Belarus. Think about that for a minute. Innocent Ukrainian women and children who are fleeing the violence savagely and illegally brought on by Belarus and by Russia are told: You can leave, but you will be forced to go to the land of your enemies. You are forced to go only to Belarus or Russia, the countries that are killing you and your family. That doesn't sound like peace talks to me. There have been numerous recorded war crimes in this assault on Ukraine. One is the way they are dealing with these civilians, obviously. President Putin and his generals and his officials must be held accountable. The Russian Federation's deliberate targeting of civilians is the most obvious example, but there are so many--the bombing of a nuclear powerplant. It is now documented that yesterday--yesterday and into this morning--Russians shelled Ukrainian citizens who were fleeing the siege of Mariupol while they were transiting through a negotiated humanitarian withdrawal corridor--a corridor that was established for them to escape. They were shelled by Russian combat forces--civilians-- because Russians did not keep their word to allow for a humanitarian escape corridor in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol. Hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped without food and water, under regular bombardments. Again, this is a tragedy on a scale difficult to comprehend. That is why it is so important to show our support with actions, not just words. A number of my colleagues and I spoke to President Zelenskyy this weekend. It was emotional, and it was inspiring. He pleaded for our assistance to help his people, and he told us he needs defensive weaponry, like fighter planes and drones, desperately. After the call, I led a bipartisan letter to President Biden with my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Jeanne Shaheen. We repeated what we had called for over the last several days, which is to help Ukraine be able to get what they need, which is more air power. Our Eastern European allies, including Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, have older, Soviet-era aircraft, such as the MiG-29 and the Su-25, that they are willing to provide to Ukraine, but they would like to have an agreement with the United States that they can backfill over time by purchasing advanced fighters, such as F-16s. By the way, the Poles, as an example, already have F-16s, but they already have these older MiGs that they are willing to provide. This seems like a win-win for everybody--for Ukraine certainly but also for Poland to improve their defensive posture in the wake of what is going on in Ukraine. The Soviet aircraft are compatible with the Ukrainian Air Force. Their pilots have the requisite training to operate them. Again, we have been told they are willing to donate these aircraft when they are provided these assurances and a roadmap, that they will be allowed to purchase more advanced aircraft over time. Let's make this happen. Let's not say we have to go through a long, bureaucratic process. Let's be creative here. They need these planes now. They needed them yesterday. This will help to stop some of the atrocities we talked about. Think of that column, miles and miles of armored vehicles and tanks heading towards Kyiv to kill more civilians. Some airpower would be very helpful right now. And there are other capabilities such as communications gear, drones that can provide intelligence and surveillance and ammunition, all of it should be moving quickly into Ukraine. And I applaud the administration for what they have done, but we have got to do more. We have all seen these horrible images on our television sets, families torn apart, the ravages of a needless war, the deliberate intentional targeting of civilians by rockets, even cluster munitions. By providing lethal and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, the U.S. sends a strong message: We stand for freedom, and we stand with freedom-loving countries. I commend the administration for some of the steps they have taken, as I say, but we have got to do more. I appreciate that we have sanctioned Russian banks, Russian elites, placed limits on high-tech commerce, Russia's ability to do business in dollars. That is all good. The Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on economic measures to target the core infrastructure of Russia and more than 50 percent of the total banking system of Russia, which will have devastating economic effects over time. But let's put all the banks into that system. Let's do everything we can to tighten the noose on the Putin economy. Some have asked me: Why does what is happening in Ukraine matter? I was home this weekend, and a lot of positive response, but people were also saying: Ukraine is a long way away, why does it matter so much? I would say that this is where, in our generation, in our time, the cause of freedom is being defended. This is where, in our generation, in our time, we must protect those who wish to chart their own course, protect their sovereign independent country. And this is where we are being tested--not just the United States, but our allies and all freedom-loving people around the world. When the people of Ukraine chose to get rid of a corrupt Russian- backed government 8 years ago--for a second time, by the way--they chose freedom over tyranny. They chose democracy over authoritarianism. They chose to ensure that the people of Ukraine would have the ability to be free and independent. That is what we freedom-loving countries of the world proclaim every day. Now is the time not to shirk our responsibilities, but to step forward and help any way we can shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine. They are defending their homeland fiercely. They have already denied President Putin his early goals. He has severely underestimated the power of freedom and the power of the Ukrainian people; there is no question about that. But in Congress, we can and should do more. And the international community must do more to hold Russia accountable. I say to the Russian commanders in the field and to the officials in Moscow: There is another choice. Stop this atrocity. Refuse the orders to kill innocent neighbors. Stop this atrocity that has already taken the lives of thousands of innocent civilians--men, women, and children--who want nothing other than to live in peace. I say to those commanders and these officials: The world is watching. The war crimes are being recorded. You have a choice. Here in Congress, we can do more to tighten the sanctions. We can do more to provide more military assistance to Ukraine. There is bipartisan agreement on so much of this, including the need to cut off the funding that is going to the Putin economy and his war machine. One example of this, but one important one, is not to buy Russian oil and send blood money to Russia. Why would we be importing Russian oil, sending Russia $40, $50 million a day? That makes no sense. Let's use our natural resources here in North America. We have the resources here. We should not be dependent on the Russian oil. We should not be sending them this blood money. By the way, there is bipartisan agreement on this. Last week, I joined legislation with Republicans and Democrats alike, equal number, with Senator Murkowski and Senator Manchin, to do just that. We need to stop all Russian banks from their access to the international banking system--not some; all. I commend the administration's sanctioning of Russian oligarchs and wealthy citizens, but we need to do more. We need to move from freezing assets to seizing assets. We can do that. Other countries have done it. By the way, Germany has done it. France has done it. We should be out front as Americans and not just freezing but seizing. By the way, those assets that we seize should go to the people of Ukraine to help with the humanitarian effort that is underway. Right now, our friends in Ukraine need our help. Right now. Immediately. Yesterday. They can't wait. We have an emergency supplemental bill we are working on here in Congress. Let's get it done. Let's do it outside of the omnibus or the CR or anything else. We know what needs to be done. Let's not wait. Let's not dither. The shells are flying tonight, raining upon the cities of Ukraine and its people. We cannot let this call to action go unanswered. We cannot let the Ukrainian people continue to be at the mercy of a tyrannical dictator. We cannot sit by and watch as innocent civilians are being killed. In the West, in America, we must stand up--all of us--for freedom. The world is watching. Our allies are watching. Our adversaries are watching. We must show the world that America does stand for freedom, and we stand with Ukraine. God bless Ukraine. Or as the Ukrainian people say: Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes. Slava Ukraini, heroyam slava. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I am here on the floor today to talk about Postal Service reform. We have another vote this afternoon. And this is incredibly important to the people I represent and whom all of us represent. It is important because the Postal Service is something people depend on for so much. This legislation we are talking about has been in the works for years. It is a bill to try to save the post office from insolvency. And if we don't act on this, I believe in the next few years we will be back here with a big bailout for the Postal Service because they are having a tough time financially. The combination of this legislation that we will pass and some internal reforms that the post office is making should be enough to get the post office back on track. The Postal Service has a Postmaster General right now who is absolutely committed to that--making the post office more effective, more efficient--but he needs a little breathing room, as he says, and that is what we are doing here in Congress. It doesn't cost the taxpayer anything. By the way, if we don't do this, in a few years, it would cost the taxpayers a lot in terms of a bailout, and I am afraid it would happen. The post office, again, is so important. It is definitely worth saving. Our country is pretty divided right now--let's be honest--but one enduring reality about our country is that we have a post office that ties us all together, and everybody depends on that post office. By the way, it has been that way for a long time. In 1775, 3 months after the battles of Lexington and Concord--so this is 1775, before the Revolution was finalized in 1776. During that time, the delegates to the Second Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin as the Postmaster General. And why was this so important? Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers, and this was considered to be a really crucial post because the new Postal Service offered a way for the colonists to talk to each other, to communicate, for Revolutionary leaders to be able to strategize with each other outside of the official British channels. So the post office has that rich history, and it continues to bind us today. In Ohio, it ensures that veterans get their medications that they get through the mail. And believe me, that is important to them, to get it on time. It allows for absentee voters. In Ohio we have no-fault absentee. We have had it for years. It works well, but it requires the post office to do its job and obviously to not just deliver the absentee forms but to get the ballots in on time. It is also crucial for people to get their rent checks in or to be sure that they get their utility bill on time. It is for people's financial statements from their banks. But, also, the post office still delivers birthday cards, thank-you notes, and personal letters that strengthen the bonds of family and friendship. So our Postal Service binds us together at a time when we are increasingly polarized. Let's talk about what this particular legislation does. How does it save the post office? First, very simply, the bill makes sure the post office is going to be on a strong footing for the future by relieving the Postal Service of an obligation that virtually nobody else has-- nobody in the Federal Government--which is to prefund retiree health benefits. Now, if you are in a private company and you are listening to this, I am almost sure you don't prefund your retirement healthcare benefits. People don't do that. In the Federal Government, we don't do that. We don't do it here in Congress. Yet the post office has that obligation. This would allow the post office, by getting out from under that obligation, to reconcile its books more accurately and to focus on immediate obligations. They should focus on those immediate obligations but not the prefunding. Second, this bill requires postal employees who retire in the future to enroll in Medicare Part B and Part D. So hospitalization, Part A, people are already signed up for that--everybody is. But for Part B and Part D--doctors' visits, prescription drugs--about 25 percent of the people who work for the post office are not signed up for that. And by putting that 25 percent into there, it helps to save a lot of money for the post office and the taxpayers. Taxpayers will save about $1.5 billion based on this legislation, and a lot of it is because of that change. The employee health benefit plan that they would otherwise be in is a more generous plan, and that is how you get those savings. Third, the bill requires the post office to maintain its current standard of 6-day delivery. That is important to a lot of my constituents, particularly in the rural areas--they like getting their mail--and to do it through an integrated delivery system of mail and packages together. That, of course, makes sense. You don't want separate systems going out for packages and for mail. That is what they do now, so this is really just restating the status quo, and that is very important. For some of the private-sector companies that provide delivery services, they want to know that this is just the status quo; we are not talking about any changes. Both sides of the aisle have talked to me about this 6-day delivery. I know that wherever people have a rural area in their State, this is particularly important. It ensures that people are going to receive their medications, their checks, their correspondence on a timely and predictable basis. So this bill shores up the post office, and it does it in a way that actually saves money. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates, as I said, this legislation will save taxpayers $1.5 billion, so it doesn't cost taxpayers anything. It is not the appropriation of more money, but over 10 years it saves that money. CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, which is the nonpartisan body up here that looks at the economic impact of legislation, has told us recently that this bill will not affect the solvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. That is the trust fund we talk about a lot here that we are concerned that it is going to become insolvent in only a short number of years and that that is going to cause problems for Medicare. That trust fund is not touched by this legislation. CBO has also made it clear that the bill will not increase Part B or Part D premiums--again, Part B, doctors' visits; Part D, prescription drugs. That is very important because a lot of people have concerns about that. And one reason it doesn't affect it, by the way, is there is only a small number of postal employees--only 25 percent of them-- who would become part of that, so it is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of people on Medicare. There are probably 60-some million people--that would be 61, 62 million people in Medicare, and this is between 14,000 and maybe 80,000 people who would be added to Part B and Part D. So it does not affect the premiums. By the way, these people have been paying into Medicare for their whole career, so it is appropriate that they go into Part B and Part D. This is a good bill, and I think that is why it passed the House with such a strong vote. It passed with a bipartisan vote in the House of 342 to 92. That rarely happens, particularly in the House of Representatives. So that is an indication of what kind of legislation this is. It is popular because it is about saving the post office, and it is popular because it does so without asking the taxpayers to step up and do more. In fact, it saves some money. And it is popular because we have worked together on this. We have each side made concessions. Is it the perfect bill that I would have written? No. The same as my colleague from Michigan, who has just arrived on the Democratic side. He would have written it differently in a number of respects. I know that because he had to make concessions; we had to make concessions. But we ended up with legislation that does the job, and that is what is important: to put the post office in a position to succeed in its critical mission to provide essential services to small businesses, to our veterans, to our seniors, to our rural constituents. Let's pass this bill, and let's ensure the post office is healthy for all those folks we represent back home. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I want to start by commending my colleague from South Carolina. He just spoke about his police modernization efforts over the years and of his passionate commitment to this issue, which comes from his heart. I hope that the other side is hearing that because I think there is an opportunity now to come together, particularly in light of the speech the other night by the President, to say, let's do two things. One, let's help these communities to be able to be safer and help the people who live there, but, also, let's increase the amount of respect and gratitude for our police officers. Those two are not inconsistent. In fact, they are complementary. That is why I appreciate the work that he has done and will do. Ukraine Madam President, tonight, in Ukraine, the bombs are already raining down on the cities of Kharkiv, of Kyiv, and other towns and cities throughout Ukraine. Indiscriminate bombings--artillery, missiles--are killing innocent civilians. Already, thousands of civilians have been killed. This was a totally unwarranted, unjustified, atrocious invasion of a free country, of an independent sovereign country. Here on the floor of the Senate we have an opportunity to do something about it, which is to act on legislation called the supplemental appropriations bill, which provides more funding and help for two things: one, the military response. We need to do everything we can--we need to flood the zone--to help the Ukrainians be able to defend themselves. They want more help, and they need more help, and I think the American taxpayer, from what we have already done, should be proud of that, but we need to do more and do it quickly. We can't wait for the redtape and the bureaucracy to finish up before we send small arms, before we send more Stingers to be able to shoot down airplanes, or more Javelins to stop these tanks that are coming into Kyiv. You saw that long column. We should do more. We should provide more funding for the kind of airplanes that we don't have but that other countries do that they might be willing to provide, we are told, if we provide compensation to them--MiG fighters that they can use--because airpower is so important. We should provide more in terms of the drones that countries like Turkey can provide, and we can help finance, to be able to give them the ability to do things like stop that murderous column that is on its way to kill civilians in Kyiv tonight. So my hope is that, on both sides of the aisle, we put aside whatever differences we have and focus on this immediately. The funding is needed to be able to ensure that we have a sustained effort here-- because this is not going to be a matter of hours or days; it is going to be a matter of weeks and months--and we need to do everything we can do to help the freedom-loving people of Ukraine defend their liberty, their freedom, their independence, their sovereignty.

Mr. PORTMAN. So I encourage my colleagues to join us in support of this legislation. Let's put the Postal Service in a position to succeed, and let's provide those essential services to the small businesses, veterans, the elderly, rural constituents, who rely on it so much--the prescription drugs we talked about, the Social Security checks, the rent checks, the utility checks, and the ballots. I appreciate working with my colleague Senator Gary Peters on this, over time, to try to find a consensus, to try to find a way forward that was bipartisan, bicameral, where we could actually do something after years and years of talking about what bad shape the post office is in financially, to do something to right the ship, to ensure it will be there for the future. Let's pass this bill, and let's do ensure that the post office is healthy for all the folks we represent going forward. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, first, I want to thank my colleague who just spoke about some really important issues. Senator Grassley from Iowa talked about the fentanyl crisis that is facing our country. Unfortunately, this synthetic opioid is now killing more and more Americans. We are back to record levels of overdose deaths, and probably two-thirds of them are caused by fentanyl. He is absolutely right. We need to be sure it is scheduled clearly as an illegal drug, as well as all the variants of it. Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act of 2022 Mr. President, I am coming on the floor today to talk about another issue that is really important to our country, and that is protecting us from cyber attacks. Last night, I commend this body because the U.S. Senate passed legislation called the Strengthening American Cybersecurity Act of 2022. What does that mean? It means that we took the time to do our homework, had hearings, and reported out legislation that helps protect our government data, including personal data of American citizens, but also our national security data and other sensitive information from cyber attacks. Also, we put in place provisions to help protect the private sector, particularly critical infrastructure. With what is going on right now around the world, particularly with regard to Russia and Ukraine, it is incredibly important that we put up better defenses here in this country, as well as helping Ukraine and other countries to fight against these cyber attacks. In recent years, we have seen this time and time again. I am sure you remember the Colonial Pipeline. Remember, they shut down gasoline distribution to the eastern part of the United States. These were cyber attacks. You probably heard of some of these other cyber attacks, like SolarWinds or ones where these criminal gangs demand a ransom using so- called ransomware. This is happening increasingly. Again, my concern is, particularly with what is going on today in our volatile and dangerous world, that it will continue to happen and even become much more dangerous for us. The House of Representatives now has a chance to take up this legislation and pass it. They have been working with us on this all along on a bicameral basis, the House and the Senate, Republican and Democrat. This hasn't been a partisan issue. It has been one of these issues where we have worked together. Senator Peters, who is the chair of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee--I am the ranking Republican, top Republican--we have worked together on this, but so did a lot of other members across the aisle. Senator Rubio and Senator Warner, Senator Collins, and others, they vitally represent the Intelligence Committee, which also has a strong interest in this. In my role as the ranking member on Homeland Security, we spend a lot of time focused on the oversight of this issue, how to respond to things like SolarWinds we talked about or Colonial Pipeline or other cyber attacks. What we have found is that these cyber attacks are increasingly sophisticated and that our own government doesn't have the tools they need, and that is why this legislation is so important. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an atrocity. It must not stand. But one of the things they have done in Ukraine for the last 8 years--and, really, before that as well, but particularly the last 8 years, since 2014 when Ukraine decided to turn to the West, to turn to us--is Russia had done these cyber attacks relentlessly in Ukraine. And they are stepping them up right now, along with the horrible scenes we see of the bombings of innocent civilians in their apartment buildings. I saw today that not only have hospitals and childcare institutions been bombed but also the Holocaust memorial in Kyiv has been damaged. So what the Russians are doing is appalling, and the entire freedom-loving world needs to stand up to it, and we need to help Ukraine more. But one thing they have also done is they have launched these cyber attacks against the Ukrainian Government and against the private sector infrastructure in Ukraine. That, too, is a place where we can help. But, again, we need to be sure that we have our own house in order here to be able to be more helpful, to be able to provide the best practices, and to help Ukraine be able to deal with these attacks, both kinetic attacks, these military attacks, and also the cyber attacks. Many times, the cyber attacks are also mixed with disinformation attacks because the Russians are flooding the zone and trying to take their disinformation and their lies and spread it around to the Ukrainian people. By the way, not many people are believing it anymore because it is so outrageous. In China, we see another sophisticated cyber adversary ramping up their rhetoric and their incursion into Taiwan's air defense zone. All these threats make enacting this legislation we passed last night all the more important. Legislation has three complementary bills combined into one. First, it will protect our critical infrastructure better from cyber attacks by increasing our visibility as a country into these cyber attacks and building the government's ability to warn potential victims and mount a nationwide defense and provide best practices to our critical infrastructure. It will strengthen the government's own response and recovery capabilities, protecting sensitive data as well. And, finally, it will make government acquisition and use of cloud services more secure, more accountable, more efficient, and, significantly, keep countries like China and Russia from being able to access the cloud. All of these bills were passed out of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee with strong bipartisan support. And, again, it passed the Senate overwhelmingly last night. The first of these bills that I mentioned is called the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act. Cyber attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure, whether by foreign governments, like Russia and China, or criminal organizations, are, of course, a serious national security threat. Today, no one U.S. Government agency has visibility into all the cyber attacks occurring against critical infrastructure on a daily basis. We need that. We need to know what is going on to be able to warn other infrastructure and to be able to respond quickly. Right now, if Russia initiates a cyber campaign against U.S. critical infrastructure, there would be nothing to ensure that the U.S. Government is notified of that so it can mount a nationwide response and, again, warn other critical infrastructure operators similarly situated. This bill would change that, enabling a coordinated, informed U.S. response to cyber attacks against the United States. The Cyber Incident Reporting Act will require critical infrastructure owners and operators to report substantial cyber attacks within 72 hours and ransomware payments within 24 hours to what is called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It is called CISA. CISA has done an effective job in the Trump administration, now in the Biden administration, but they need these tools to be able to do a better job. CISA having this information will be able to use the data to immediately contact the FBI and other appropriate law enforcement but also to help with best practices to mitigate the damage and to warn other critical infrastructures of threats, help these victims recover, analyze trends, and enable a whole-of-the-nation defense and response to these attacks. It is a cyber attack. It is not soldiers with guns, but it can have some of the same horrible impacts and damage to our economy and to individuals. Again, think of the oil pipeline, Colonial Pipeline, being basically shut off to the whole East Coast of the United States. The second bill that is part of this package is called the Federal Information Cyber Security Modernization Act, or FISMA. FISMA is the acronym for the way in which we protect our Federal Agencies. And, unfortunately, we know that Federal Agencies--government Agencies--have failed to protect Americans' data--our data, personal data. Last August, I released a report with Chairman Peters detailing the significant cyber security vulnerabilities of eight different key Federal Agencies--Homeland Security, State, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education, and the Social Security Administration--the Social Security Administration where a lot of our sensitive information is kept. This report that we issued followed a report just a few years ago, in 2019, that I issued with Senator Carper when I was chair of the Permanent Committee on Investigations, and we investigated all eight of these Agencies to determine how they were doing in terms of pushing back against cyber attacks. In last year's report, only the Department of Homeland Security had an effective cyber security program. No other Agency we reviewed met the standard. And we found that, governmentwide, the average cyber security grade in pushing back against these cyber attacks was a C- minus--not the grade I would have wanted to take home to my parents. But that is the truth. We are just not prepared. The report identifies several common Agency vulnerabilities, including the failure to protect personally identifiable information. Again, think about some of these Agencies, HHS or Social Security. That is a big issue; second, maintain an accurate list of the Agencies' IT equipment so they know what they have; third, install security patches quickly; and, fourth, replace vulnerable and insecure legacy technology. A lot of these Agencies have technology that needs to be updated that is stovepiped--in other words, isn't working well together and that makes it difficult to push back against these cyber attacks. In the 7 years since FISMA was last updated, Federal Agencies have had these same vulnerabilities year after year, putting America's data at risk. So this legislation takes the important steps to remedy these systemic problems we identified. It incorporates recommendations from my bipartisan reports with Senator Peters and Senator Carper and will adopt a risk-based approach to cyber security budgeting; position the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency--CISA, we talked about earlier--as the lead Agency in securing these Federal networks. There needs to be accountability, and that is missing now. We need to require Agencies to notify Americans whose personal identifiable information is compromised during a breach. To me, this is just a basic requirement for government. If you have personal information that has been breached because the government system has not been properly protected, you ought to be told about that so you can take your own steps to protect yourself. Complement the Cyber Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act by ensuring that Federal Agencies and contractors also notify CISA when they suffer a breach. We talked about that earlier. But having that information is very helpful. And, finally, update the requirements for congressional notification when an Agency suffers a major cyber incident. We have an oversight responsibility here. We need to know if there has been a major cyber attack. Finally, this legislation includes a third part, which is called the FedRAMP Authorization Act. This is the one that will authorize the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program that deals with cloud computing and protecting the cloud. FedRAMP is a governmentwide program administered by the General Services Administration that provides Agencies and cloud service providers with a standard approach to evaluating, authorizing, and monitoring the security of cloud services. So when a Federal Government Agency wants to use the cloud services, they have to go through this process. In the first 4 years of FedRAMP, the program authorized only 20 cloud service providers. Today, there are more than 230 cloud service providers--30 percent of which are small businesses. This act builds on the successes of FedRAMP and Agencies' continued push to adopt commercial cloud solutions by addressing existing costs and processing times. But it also includes measures to strengthen the government's response to foreign interference in our cloud systems. Supply chain security experts have warned us about the weaknesses in FedRAMP that leave our cloud systems vulnerable to interference from countries like Russia and China, North Korea, Iran. The reforms in this bill will allow for increased transparency and better monitoring of possible foreign influences in FedRAMP-approved systems. For example, it requires an Agency to review, on an interagency basis, government standards to identify and assess the origin of software and code to provide the transparency and accountability needed into the FedRAMP- approved systems that are developed and maintained by foreign engineers in countries like Russia and China. This bill also requires private-sector, third-party assessment organizations to disclose to GSA any information they have related to any foreign interests, any foreign influences, any foreign control, of course, or ownership, and to report a change in foreign ownership or control to GSA within 48 hours. We have had instances like this where we are using cloud-based services that then become bought by a foreign entity and that is not reported and therefore they continue to provide these services, which is something we need to stop. I commend the hard work of so many of my colleagues in crafting this broader legislation, including Chairman Peters, Chairman Warner, Ranking Member Rubio, Senator Collins of the Intelligence Committee, as well as so many other colleagues on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Intel Committee. I also want to thank our colleagues in the House, particularly Representatives Clarke and Katko, because this has been a truly bicameral exercise, both in terms of the oversight and identifying what the problems are and coming up with appropriate legislation. And by the way, this legislation is strongly supported by those in the administration who are responsible for dealing with cyber attacks. They need these tools, and they want these tools. We are not done yet because it has just passed the Senate. It has not passed the House. But we need to move quickly to enact these important changes to modernize our cyber security posture. I urge the House to act quickly, to be sure we can protect ourselves from cyber attacks, particularly in this increasingly dangerous environment. I would hope that we could send this critically important legislation to the President's desk for signature very soon and be sure we are doing all we know to do to be able to better protect our country and our citizens in cyber attacks.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I rise today in support of the legislation that my colleague from Michigan just talked about. This is H.R. 3076, the Postal Service Reform Act. What it really is, though, is ensuring that the post office works, that it works for the constituents whom I represent and people all around the country. Unfortunately, right now, the post office is in trouble. It is in dire need of reform, and if we don't do it, we are going to have big problems. The post office just had its 15th consecutive annual net loss in 2021, and they projected they are going to be insolvent in the next few years unless we make these reforms and other reforms as well that can be made by the post office itself. In fact, they project a 10-year loss of $160 billion if we just continue with the status quo. The reality is that the Postal Service is delivering less and less first-class mail. We are all online. We are not sending as many letters as we used to. Yet there are more and more addresses that they deliver to because more and more people want to get the mail they do deliver, the packages, the direct mail, and so on. So it doesn't work. It is a recipe for ruin if we don't adjust to the new reality and make some necessary changes. Last year, Senator Peters and I did introduce the legislation he talked about. We had 26 cosponsors, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. We kept this bipartisan from the start. In fact, I would even say we tried to keep it nonpartisan. What could be more nonpartisan than trying to save the post office? Everybody cares about the post office and wants to be sure it is working well and working efficiently. It is not a partisan issue; it is of importance to all Americans--young, old, urban, rural, everybody. I hear a lot about it back home from my constituents. A constituent from Butler County, OH, wrote me recently and said: My father, a veteran of the Vietnam war, has COPD and is 70 years old. He receives his lifesaving medication through the mail. My father can't breathe without his daily inhaler. We have to be sure the post office works for him. A constituent from Montgomery County wrote: As a disabled veteran, I need to vote by mail. We have the ability to vote by mail in Ohio. It is no-fault absentee. But it requires the Postal Service to work, right? It doesn't work well if the ballot is late and is not counted. A constituent from Richland County, OH, wrote: The post office is essential to millions of Americans, including seniors and veterans who depend on it for medications, small business owners who are already struggling. Everybody. Everybody. Putting the Postal Service on sound financial footing cannot be accomplished through an act of Congress alone. This is not just about passing a law here. We are going to do that. We had a good vote last night, and I think we will get more people supporting it, I hope, as we go through the week. But it is also about reforms that the post office is going to make itself. The current Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, has embarked on an ambitious plan to transform the Postal Service by finding efficiencies, including transforming existing capabilities to more efficiently meet the needs of the American people. He is taking on a 10-year plan to make certain changes to make the post office more efficient, but he has made clear to us that he needs the financial space to do that. He needs some headroom here by us making some important changes here in Congress. We have a role to play too. This is what we do: First, we eliminate a burdensome and unique prefunding requirement for retiree health benefits. Congress mandated this back in 2006 for current employees, regardless of age. That has crippled the Postal Service financially. Prefunding of retiree health benefits is not something that anybody else has to do. It is really uniquely the post office. The Federal Government does not do that. The private sector does not do that. In fact, very few private sector entities, of course, offer retiree health benefits. They rely on Medicare. So the Federal Government doesn't do it. The private sector doesn't do it. Why is the post office doing it? That is a good question. We are just trying to bring the post office in line with what everybody else is doing with regard to retiree health benefits. Second, it requires Postal Service employees who are retiring--who have been paying into Medicare their entire career, by the way--to actually enroll in Medicare Part B and Part D. Everybody is in Part A, but about 25 percent of postal employees are not in Part B. Instead, they rely on the Federal employee health benefit plan, which is far more expensive. This includes the ability for these post office retirees to get into Medicare Advantage. That is very important to me. So just like happens under current opportunities to enroll in Medicare Advantage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, they would be able to use the Medicare Advantage Program, which I like. It is kind of a wraparound program that gives you more opportunities for more options and benefits. It is more like a private sector plan. A lot of my constituents in Ohio like it and use it. Currently, again, about 25 percent of postal employees don't enroll in Medicare even though they are eligible for it. Again, they paid their HI payroll tax, the HI tax you see on your paycheck. This means the Postal Service is currently paying higher premiums for FEHB than other public or private sector employers who require Medicare. This is a big savings for them. Third, it requires the Postal Service to maintain its current standard of 6-day-a-week delivery through an integrated delivery network of mail and packages. This was important to a lot of my colleagues--particularly those representing rural areas--that they keep this 6-day-a-week delivery. It is important to the guy who is from Butler County who gets his COPD medication through the mail. So it requires the post office to continue to do that even while finding other efficiencies. In terms of the integrated delivery network of mail and packages together, it underscores through a rule of construction that this has no impact on existing rules governing how the Postal Service attributes costs between packages and mail. Let me repeat that. We provide for an integrated delivery system of mail and packages, and that makes sense. If you are going to deliver mail to somebody, you should also be delivering the package, right? That is much more efficient. But we say that this has no impact on existing rules governing how the Postal Service attributes costs between packages and mail. This is important to me because this makes sure that the private sector will not be subject to unfair competition. In addition to doing all of these things, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will result in a little more than $1 billion in savings in outlays and $458 million in savings in direct spending. The bottom line is, the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, the nonpartisan group up here in Congress, has looked at this and said there is going to be a $1.5 billion savings to the taxpayer because of this legislation--$1.5 billion savings to the taxpayer. Because it makes sense, this legislation received strong bipartisan support when it was taken up in the House of Representatives. In fact, it was passed by a vote of 342 to 92. Not much gets passed with those kinds of big bipartisan numbers these days. Republicans and Democrats alike looked at this and said: You know, the post office is in trouble. We have to do something. Some say: Well, this may not be perfect. Well, it is not perfect. Nothing is around here. But it is a whole lot better than the alternative, and it does get the post office back on track. Again, along with the reforms that are being undertaken at the Postal Service itself, this legislation gives them the financial breathing room they need to be able to save the post office. I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill. Let's put the post office in a position to succeed and provide those essential services that small businesses, veterans, and rural constituents rely on so much. I appreciate working with my colleague Senator Peters on this over time to find consensus. Both sides had to make concessions to get to this point. We have ended up with a good bill. Let's pass this bill and ensure that the post office is healthy for our constituents moving forward. I yield the floor.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, this is the fourth time I have come to the floor of the Senate in the past month to talk about the crisis in Ukraine and to talk about what we can do here in the U.S. Congress to try to help the great people of Ukraine. Today, I come to the floor to express my solidarity with the courageous people of Ukraine, who, as we speak, are under attack in Kyiv and Kharkiv, and in so many other cities and towns throughout Ukraine. Russia's attack on Ukraine is a brutal, unprovoked invasion of a democracy--an ally and a sovereign nation. It must not be allowed to stand or it will create a precedent that unravels the international order that has kept the peace in Europe for nearly 80 years. Earlier today, Senator Durbin and I organized a meeting of the Ukraine Caucus. We are the cochairs. We had Ambassador Markarova come, who is the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States. Along with her came a member of the Rada, their Parliament, who happened to be in the United States when the attack began. They spoke with emotion about their country, about what they needed--Stinger missiles, Javelin missiles--to be able to fight against superior Russian air power and Russian tanks. But they also spoke with compassion about the people of Ukraine, about the sacrifice and the courage that they are showing. From the woman who has never fought before who now has an AK-47 and is defending her family in her apartment building to the President of the Republic, President Zelenskyy, all of them are showing courage in defending their homeland, their way of life, and democracy. I also just left a briefing that was an opportunity to hear from the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and other American officials about what we are doing as a country and to give us an update on their view as to what is happening in Ukraine. Just as the conversation with Ambassador Markarova and a member of the Rada was inspiring to hear about the courage and the resilience of the people of Ukraine, the briefing with our American officials was sobering. It was encouraging to see America stand up to protect freedom; but also, an understanding that the Russian forces outnumber those in Ukraine--and certainly their equipment, technology, their planes, and their tanks, and their ships are going to make this a very, very difficult battle. Thankfully, the world is rallying on this side of freedom. That is encouraging and inspiring. I was in Cleveland, OH, last night at a prayer vigil and then a rally. Over 1,000 people showed up. Many were Ukrainian Americans who live in Northeast Ohio--it is a strong community--but many were not. Many were from other countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, people who have family from Romania, Bulgaria, people from the entire region--including some from Russia--but all standing firmly with the people of Ukraine. As was said last night at the prayer vigil: Tonight, we are all Ukrainians. Tonight, we are all Ukrainians. There were also demonstrations and rallies all around the country yesterday. We are told over 40 cities had rallies to support Ukraine and the people of Ukraine. Last night, I heard stories about family members who are in harm's way. Again, people with their voices choked with emotion were talking about what is going on, what they are hearing from their family members back in Ukraine. One guy who I know told me that his brother-in-law back in Ukraine who, again, has never picked up a weapon before in his life, has joined the military. He is probably about my age. He has joined the military to put his life at risk for his country and for his neighbors. The people of Ukraine did nothing to cause this invasion--nothing. Their only desire is to live in peace. As Ambassador Markarova said this afternoon: Ukrainians never attack anybody. We just want to live in peace. Allow us to determine our own fate, our own destiny. That is what Vladimir Putin cannot abide, and that is what we in America and the rest of the free world must support Ukrainians in doing, to allow them to have the future that they choose through a duly elected government. The freedoms and democracy and prosperity that we take for granted so often in this country, they relish. In 2014, at the Maidan, once again they threw off the shackles of a Russian-backed government. They know what it is like to live under the thumb of Russia, under the thumb of the Soviet Union before that. They don't want to go back. In 2014, they made a conscious decision to go forward, looking to the West, to stand with us. I was there while the Maidan was still smoldering. The tires were still smoldering. People were still there, gathered. Even though the Russian-backed government had been removed, they still weren't sure what would happen. Then an election occurred, a democratic election. And a President was elected. And a parliament, a Rada, was elected. And they began to fight for not just the freedom of Ukraine and the democracy in Ukraine but the rule of law to get rid of some of the oligarchical structure that Russia had left, the corruption. And now this, after so much progress. Since 2014, they have fought and fought and fought to be like us. And now this. Hundreds of innocent Ukrainians--men, women, and children--have already lost their lives in this invasion. Nobody knows the exact number. But we saw footage today on CNN, on FOX, on the networks, of apartment buildings that had been attacked by missiles. We heard from the Ambassador that two five-story apartment buildings had been attacked today, and women and children had lost their lives. This humanitarian crisis, of course, is pouring refugees into other countries as well. Hundreds of thousands of people have escaped to Poland, mostly women and children. Romania is also taking its share of refugees. But make no mistake: Ukrainians are fighting. They are fighting back bravely. And they have inflicted great costs already on their Russian invaders. I commend those brave Ukrainians and Armed Forces who picked up arms against these great odds and have already denied President Putin his initial objective and immediate occupation. I want to particularly commend the brave leadership of Ukraine President Vladimir Zelenskyy. His defiance in the face of evil is what leads free countries and societies through difficult and dark days like Ukraine is experiencing right now. When it was suggested to him that the West would like to help him to find a way to escape, his response this week was: ``I need ammunition, not a ride.'' ``I need ammunition, not a ride.'' This has been a rallying cry not only for the people of Ukraine but around the world. Unfortunately, Ukraine is used to this Russian aggression. They have suffered already during an 8-year war on Ukraine since 2014, since the Revolution of Dignity, since the events under Maidan I talked about earlier. Fourteen thousand Ukrainian citizens have lost their lives at the hands of Russian snipers, Russian military, and artillery. I have been to the front. They call it the line of contact. It is the border now between Ukraine and these so-called occupied territories, the Donbas. ``Line of contact'' is a euphemism. It makes it sound like there are gloves touching at the contact. It is a line of war, and it has been for 14 years. Again, 14,000 Ukrainians have lost their lives. I had to wear the helmet and the flak jacket because there were snipers that day taking pot shots at Ukrainian soldiers. But I saw with those Ukrainian soldiers the patriotism, the nationalism that I knew would lead them to fight; that the miscalculation by President Putin was that, somehow, Russia would be greeted as victors. Some even said that he thought he would be greeted with flowers. Instead, they are being greeted with AK-47s. And having been there on the frontlines, you knew this would happen. These Ukrainians are not going to give up their country. When President Putin decided to invade Ukraine in 2014 and seize Crimea and come into the Donbas, it was clear that Russia was not a rational actor but one motivated by the irrational dreams of recreating an empire at all costs. The world warned Russia to stand down then, and they refused. And the sanctions were too weak. This time, the world again has warned Vladimir Putin to stand down. Instead, he has ordered airstrikes into the capital city of Kyiv. Now there are reports of Russian military deliberately striking hospitals, kindergartens, and apartment complexes, as I talked about a moment ago. These are war crimes, and the world is watching. I would say to Russian officials tonight, Russian commanders, there is another way. Stop this atrocity. The world is watching, and the war crimes are being recorded. You can refuse these orders--and you must for the sake of humanity. Why would you want to kill your neighbors in Ukraine who are innocent and just want to have the opportunity to lead their life as they see fit? These are not just war crimes; they are a clear violation of Russia's international commitments under the Budapest Memorandum, the Minsk agreements, the U.N. Charter, international law--as was the decree issued earlier in February, about 2 weeks ago, by President Putin, which recognized the independence of parts of Ukraine, the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic. He did so as a pretext to ordering the Russian military to conduct so-called peacekeeping missions in occupied Ukrainian territories. We now see that this was one more case of disinformation. The lies and disinformation will continue, as they did today. But they are taking in fewer and fewer people because people can see what is happening. This is the age of digital communications, where people can see videos in realtime of the war crimes being committed. I was among those advocating for tougher sanctions upfront, preinvasion, believing that might dissuade Russia from launching a full-scale assault. I cosponsored legislation to do just that and had hoped Congress would pass bipartisan legislation mandating tough financial sanctions, Nord Stream 2 sanctions, assistance to combat cyber attacks, disinformation, in addition to advanced military aid. I honestly don't know whether it would have kept Vladimir Putin from making this terrible mistake, but I thought it was something we should have done. We chose not to. And we are where we are. And now, we are seeing not just the United States but the rest of the world step forward with these tough sanctions. And I congratulate the Biden administration for getting the rest of the world on board, as they have. There is more to do. We have now targeted Russian banks, Russian elites with sanctions, placed limits on high-tech commerce and Russia's ability to do business in dollars. All are welcome. In particular, the Treasury Department's imposition of economic measures that target the core infrastructure of Russia and more than 50 percent of the total banking system in Russia will have a devastating economic effect over time. Already today, they closed down their markets in Russia, their stock market. They are saying that foreign reserve cannot leave the country. So it is already having an impact. In addition, the administration's announcement that they will sell 250 M1A2 battle tanks to Poland, I commend. I have been pushing for that for some time. These are the best tanks in the world. And Poland wanted them, and it is great we are now delivering those. We have now deployed more U.S. troops to Germany and Eastern Europe to enhance NATO defenses. That is necessary, in my view. We are not in Ukraine but in the countries around Ukraine to ensure that, should Vladimir Putin expand this war--and who knows whether he will or not-- he will meet even stiffer resistance from NATO. We must make it part of a deliberate, coordinated strategy to enhance the military readiness of our Eastern European allies and do so quickly. I also applaud the United States working with our European allies-- with Australia, with Canada, with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore on a coordinated export control response. Combined, by the way, these four Asian countries I named account for over 70 percent of the world's semiconductor production. A ban on semiconductors, on chips, would be very costly to Russia's ability to arm and resupply its military. We must be sure this action comes to fruition. This must happen. However, these are just first steps, in my view. We can and should do more. And I think there is a bipartisan consensus now here on Capitol Hill to do just that. Let me offer a few more suggestions. I welcome the news from this weekend that we are going to be joined by a number of allies in sanctioning Russia's central bank and cutting off a number of their institutions from the SWIFT financial system. We are still seeing details of these plans. But as of now, it looks like they still have some carve-outs in this plan for certain financial institutions when it comes to SWIFT. I think it is a better idea to put all of Russia's banks on this sanctioning list. As for the central bank, I am glad we are getting global cooperation, but who we really need to step up to the plate is China. I am told China holds 14 percent of Russia's finances in reserves. China needs to know that this is a decision point. Will they stand against this tyranny that the global community is standing against or not? I believe we should also target Russia's trade sector by revoking our permanent normal trade relationship, or PNTR, with Russia. In other words, the United States should no longer give Russia unrestricted access in trade to our country. This would have the effect of raising tariffs on goods from Russia to the rates at which they were before Russia joined the World Trade Organization and received this special status, PNTR, from the U.S. Congress. When I was U.S. Trade Representative, I helped negotiate this agreement, and it does give them certain privileges with regard to our economy. Free trade with the United States is a privilege, not a right. After Russia joined the WTO in 2012, Congress passed legislation to expand trade between our countries by eliminating tariffs on some of these imports. But as easily as we granted PNTR, Congress can take it away. Invading a sovereign nation, a democracy no less, is certainly grounds for us to take away that privilege. And we have the right to undo it under the WTO rules for national security reasons. It would not be unprecedented. In 1992, Congress revoked market access for Serbia and Montenegro as a result of their aggression in the wake of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Today, I will be introducing bipartisan legislation to revoke unrestricted market access for countries who invade their neighbors, period. I call upon our trading partners to invoke their own national security rights at the WTO and similarly take away market access Russia, until this point, has enjoyed in their economies. This should be ended, this market access, unless and until Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty are as they were prior to the Russian invasion. I was also glad to see the Germans have reversed their policy of not allowing arms that were originally produced in Germany to be sent to Ukraine. This is a big deal. They are now joining our other allies that have sent weapons in the past and are sending more now. Germany is allowing another ally, the Netherlands, to send rocket- propelled grenades. I have been critical of Germany. I have been critical of Germany on this very floor--also, when I was at the Munich conference in Germany last week. I wish they had taken these steps sooner, but I commend them for taking these steps now. We also need to increase shipments of lethal military arms to Ukraine, to the Baltics, to Poland, Romania--as well as increasing defense spending here at home. This weekend, the administration authorized an additional $350 million in lethal defensive arms for Ukraine. That is a positive development, and we need to get those weapons there immediately. I understand that some have gone. Others have not. These Javelins and Stingers and other military equipment need to be in Ukraine as soon as possible. The Ambassador told me today they need them badly, and there is absolutely no time to lose. I understand the administration has also recently requested $6.4 billion in aid for Ukraine in an emergency supplemental. I don't know if that is enough. With hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing to Poland and other countries supporting Ukraine, we need to provide these allies with help to deal with this crisis. I also want to take a hard look at the amount we are spending on arming Ukraine and our allies. Now is the time to provide them with what they need. An aid package should increase our lethal defensive assistance, provide critical support to combat enhanced cyber attacks against Ukraine and disinformation, and prepare for a refugee flow out of Ukraine into Europe. By the way, we also need to enhance our own tools against cyber security right here in this country. Russia's cyber warfare against America continues, and it could increase. There is legislation actually on the floor this week to do just that, the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act and two other pieces of legislation, FedRAMP and FISMA, our legislation to help protect our critical infrastructure on the private sector side but also protect our sensitive government information, national security data. So we can do something this week by passing that legislation. Finally, Ukraine and Georgia should be allowed to begin the process to become part of NATO. You may remember it has been 14 years since NATO told Ukraine and Georgia they were in line for NATO membership. It was back in 2008. I do not believe this invasion would have happened had Ukraine been part of NATO, period. I was told when I promoted this idea over the last several years that we couldn't do it because it would make Russia mad. I don't know what the reason is now. These two countries, Ukraine and Georgia, along perhaps with Sweden and Finland, if they are interested--I understand the Finnish Parliament is going to take this up tomorrow--could join the so-called MAP process, or Mutual Action Plan, in NATO, laying out the specific roadmap for entry. It is time to put Ukraine on that final track toward NATO membership. Let me remind everyone that Ukraine is not asking us to fight their wars for them. In fact, the world continues to watch and see images of Ukrainian forces and regular civilians picking up arms and defending their homeland. They are just asking for enough help to defend themselves. This is about the fight for freedom, and it is taking place right now at this time in the country of Ukraine. It is taking place in places all around the world. I am told that today there is a move toward more authoritarianism; that more people live under authoritarian regimes than under democratic regimes, based on some analysis; that it is shifting in the wrong direction. Well, why then would we not stand by Ukraine? Because Ukraine is moving in the right direction. In 2014, they moved from being under the Russian thumb, authoritarianism, to democracy, and now Russia is trying to reverse that. We must stand for freedom. Why? Because it is in our interests. Ultimately, we are the beacon of hope for opportunity for the rest of the world because of our freedoms here, but they are tenuous, and they depend on the allies around the world who also treasure freedom. There are two quotes from two U.S. Presidents that come to mind. One is from a Republican and one is from a Democrat. The Democrat is John F. Kennedy. And these are words that he actually never spoke, but he wrote them. And it was from a speech that he was meant to give on the afternoon that he was assassinated in Dallas. He was to say, at this time: [I]n this country, in this generation, [we] are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We are the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. Senator Kennedy served in this Chamber. President Kennedy was right. Just as he stood up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, he understood that by destiny rather than choice, it is up to us. Ronald Reagan famously said that you get ``[p]eace through [s]trength.'' To me, that is one of the great truisms of our last couple of decades in this country; that we have to have a strong military if we want to have peace because only by the projection of force can we ensure that we can keep peace around the world. He also said: We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted. Think of the situation in Ukraine. It is then that tyrants are tempted. There is strong bipartisan support now for Ukraine. And this week, we should work hard to ensure that we pass this supplemental appropriations bill we talked about that includes the assistance for Ukraine but also to strengthen our ability to protect against cyber attacks; also to do what we can in terms of trade--cutting off the normal trade status with Russia, tightening up the sanctions on the central bank we talked about. There is so much more we can and should do. But I find there is no lack of resolve right now from this Congress in its support for Ukraine and their people--their people who are just choosing a democratic and free future, free from tyranny. The Ukrainian dream is now under attack by a brutal dictator who wants to remake Europe and disrupt the international order that has kept the peace for nearly 80 years. It is time for this Congress to speak with one voice. Freedom in Eastern Europe depends upon it, but so does global freedom and our freedom. Our allies and our adversaries are watching. I yield the floor.