[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H777-H778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  MARKING THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF UNPROVOKED RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggs of South Carolina). The Chair 
recognizes the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Vindman) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VINDMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the House as we 
have just marked the third anniversary of the unprovoked Russian 
invasion of Ukraine.
  February 24, 2022, the date of the largest land grab in Europe since 
World War II, joins an ignominious list of others as a day of infamy, 
but this month, it is also notorious for something else.
  In this month and this year, the Pax Americana, the rules-based 
international order established in the aftermath of World War II, an 
order that has delivered peace and prosperity to the United States, has 
been brought to a dishonorable end.
  In this month, Trump ordered the U.S. Representative to the U.N. to 
vote with autocrats and against democracy.
  Pete Hegseth, the FOX weekend television host improbably elevated 
into an American Secretary of Defense, announced that NATO membership 
for Ukraine was off the table. Going further, he suggested that 
Ukraine's return to its 2014 borders was no longer in the cards. 
Hegseth thereby deprived Ukraine and the West of two of their most 
valuable bargaining chips in determining the shape of any peace 
agreement that is to come.
  In this same month, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, 
standing facts on their head, called Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the leader of 
Ukrainian democracy, an unelected ``dictator,'' and incredibly, spewing 
another blatant falsehood, blamed Ukraine for starting the war.
  In this month, in perhaps the most shameful statement from an 
American President in the history of our Republic, Trump explained that 
because Russia had lost so many soldiers, it was entitled to keep some 
or all of the territory that it had seized in its unprovoked war of 
aggression.
  It is bad enough that these are lies and betrayals of America's great 
traditions.
  It is bad enough that these statements legitimize violations of the 
fundamental principles of Pax Americana and the U.N. Charter. Namely, 
the rules of the jungle no longer apply to international relations--
that might does not make right and that powerful nations cannot employ 
force to redraw international borders at will.
  It is bad enough that the Trump administration is failing to offer a 
strong bargaining position for Ukraine from which to negotiate a just 
peace.
  It is bad enough that his statements have sent an unmistakable 
message to the world, in particular, Communist China, that aggression 
pays.
  Things are even worse than all of that.
  Under the tutelage of Donald Trump, we are witnessing a fundamental 
transformation of American foreign policy from a force for good in the 
world to a force for evil. Trump is aligning American foreign policy 
with that of the Kremlin.
  As analyst Phillips O'Brien has put it: ``The USA is now run by 
gangsters who both want to ally with other gangsters and are using 
threats of destruction and violence to get their way.''

                              {time}  1100

  In the first term, there were guardrails because there were adults in 
the room. This time there are no such adults in the room. Trump has 
surrounded himself with sycophants, yes-men, third-rate fanatics, and 
clowns from the MAGA world. The guardrails are gone. Trump is free to 
follow his peculiar whims and unhinged instincts. Indeed, he is free to 
act as would a mad king.
  The results are plain to see. The results are visible in Trump's 
repeated attacks on Denmark for refusing to sell Greenland to the 
United States, another dangerous fantasy which is roiling relations 
with a NATO ally that has been an exceptionally loyal friend in times 
of need.
  They are visible in the trade war that Trump is promising to unleash 
on Mexico, Canada, Europe, and the entire world with untold 
consequences for prosperity everywhere, including here at home.
  They are most visible in the collapse of our friendship with Ukraine, 
our

[[Page H778]]

abandonment of a fledgling democracy that has been valiantly fighting 
for its very existence. Instead of standing by Ukraine, the Trump 
administration is insisting that it yield its natural resource wealth 
to the United States in exchange for previous American support without 
any guarantee of territorial integrity.
  This is not the behavior of a great democratic power, the leader of 
the free world. It is the behavior of a Mafia state engaged in coercion 
and blackmail. It is impossible not to be ashamed by what is being done 
in the name of America.
  Putin would like nothing more than to cause internal chaos in Ukraine 
and rid Kyiv of Zelenskyy. Trump is following suit. Zelenskyy is 
absolutely right when he stated that Trump is living inside a 
disinformation bubble.
  At the root, Trump's policies betray a fundamental misunderstanding 
of the American idea: the fact that we are a free and self-governing 
people, a democracy that has always been a beacon of liberty.
  The President and his billionaire, shadow co-president have embraced 
a dystopian ideology based on falsehoods. The effect of their 
disinformation is rapidly bringing us to a crisis point where their 
falsehoods will crash into the reality of a great power competition.
  If America abandons Ukraine and embraces the Kremlin, the 
consequences for the United States and for the world will prove 
ruinous. Already, everywhere Russia has advanced into Ukrainian 
territory, its forces have raped and pillaged and murdered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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