Duckworth Calls for Support of Ukraine and Ukrainian Americans in Speech on Senate Floor
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today spoke on the Senate floor to share her support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian community in Illinois and abroad amid Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine. As a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Duckworth has been a strong supporter of Ukraine against Russia’s escalating invasion. This week, Duckworth called on the Biden Administration to grant Temporary Protected Status to Ukrainians in the U.S. following the Russian military invasion. Duckworth has also pledged her support to Ukrainian Americans in Illinois, with the Chicago Metropolitan Area being home to the second-largest population of Ukrainian-Americans in the United States. Video of the Senator’s speech is available here.
Key quotes:
“Today I want to speak to all the Ukrainians who’ve found a home in Illinois… all those strewn across Europe who’ve been forced to flee their nation in the wake of this violence… and all those still in Ukraine, praying that they’ll be able to wake up again tomorrow. Let me say this clearly: We are with you. The free world has not been fooled by Vladimir Putin’s schemes and lies.”
“Even with less power and less money… despite being outnumbered and outgunned… Ukraine has shown an incredible will to fight—putting up the fiercest of resistance against Putin and all that he stands for. That’s because cowardice will always falter in the face of courage—and Ukrainians are redefining the word ‘courage’ every day that they repel Putin’s unprovoked aggression.”
“Vladimir Putin is no savior. He will bring no glory to the Russian people. All he will bring them is travesty and economic ruin. He is no champion. He is an embarrassment. And the history books will reflect as much. Twenty-eight years ago, when we asked Ukraine to give up those nuclear weapons, they did so, choosing peace. Choosing to end the threat of bloodshed and destruction. Choosing democracy. So now, we must stand with them as they so desperately seek peace once more. They have chosen democracy, time and again. Today, and all the days that this terrible war rages on, it is time for this democracy to choose them.”
Duckworth’s full remarks as delivered below:
With Russian troops firing outside, one Ukrainian woman was rushed downstairs by hospital staff.
She was reportedly forced to give birth in a makeshift ICU in the hospital’s basement, with the sound of shelling surrounding her, and with more than 100,000 Russian troops closing in on the area.
Elsewhere in Eastern Ukraine, mothers and their newborns are being hurried from neonatal intensive care units to makeshift bomb shelters, with the blankets swaddling their babies the only armor they have protecting them from the explosions and missiles crisscrossing the sky above them.
And all across Ukraine, little girls and boys are being born in subway car shelters, where some of the first words they hear are the cries of older children asking their own parents, “Mommy, will we die here?”
This is the everyday, every-moment waking nightmare for those who call Ukraine home right now.
This is the new normal for new moms struggling to learn how to breastfeed their newborns… the new reality for new parents who just last week were trying to figure out how to afford both diapers and next month’s rent, yet who are now just desperate to get their one-week old to the two-week mark.
Why is this their new reality?
For what?
For a brutal and senseless war… a war as unjust as it is unjustifiable… as needless as it was unprovoked…
A war whose violence has already torn families apart—yet whose cruelty has failed to fracture the unity of Ukraine itself.
Three decades ago, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia asked Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum.
Ukraine did so. Voluntarily. Handing them over instead of keeping them for their own defense, because the Ukrainians so desperately sought peace and a democratic, rule-based order.
Now Russia has unilaterally broken that agreement… shattering that peace… and Ukrainians are once more laying down their lives for those same democratic principles.
The contrast is stark: Vladimir Putin is fighting for autocracy… using aggression and irresponsible, unprovoked escalation. Ukraine, meanwhile, is fighting for freedom.
Vladimir Putin believes himself to be some sort of neo-imperialist, actively attacking neighboring democracies in an attempt to restore the Russian empire.
Well, today I want to speak to all the Ukrainians who’ve found a home in Illinois and all of them who are strewn across Europe who’ve been forced to flee their nation in the wake of this violence… and to all who are still in Ukraine, praying that they’ll be able to wake up again tomorrow.
Let me say this clearly: We are with you.
The free world has not been fooled by Vladimir Putin’s schemes and lies.
We know that he is no hero, for Russians or anyone else.
He is a violent mobster and a bully.
An egomaniac who uses his own power to abuse those with less power…
A tyrant who uses the levers in his control to level those that are in his way…
Someone who uses weapons of war to murder children from afar…
Who turns toddlers into orphans from hundreds of miles away, from the safety of his hallowed halls and heavily fortified mansions.
And yet, even with less power and less money… despite being outnumbered and outgunned… Ukraine has shown an incredible will to fight—putting up the fiercest of resistance against Putin and all that he stands for.
That’s because cowardice will always falter in the face of courage—and Ukrainians are redefining that word “courage” every day that they repel Putin’s unprovoked aggression.
That’s because those fighting for reasons of ego and greed will always stumble in the face of those fighting so that their children can climb out of bomb shelters…
So that their third-graders can go back to school…
So that their families don’t need to live every hour, breathe every breath, with the kind of fear that Putin thrives on.
And while I wish more than anything that Putin had never started this war and those tanks had never rolled through their nation’s streets, now the world will know the strength that typifies the Ukrainian people.
They will know that Kyiv is synonymous with courage.
They will know that though buildings in Odessa may crumble, the heart of the Ukrainian people will never waiver.
I am in awe of those men, women and children.
I am in awe of the troops doing everything in their power to protect them.
And I am honored that the Illinois National Guard helped train some of those Ukrainian Soldiers, with our Guard members advising Ukrainian forces just last year on how to improve their defense capabilities.
They are our brothers-and-sisters-in-arms, and their bravery… their resilience… their determination over this past week has reminded the world that, as a certain retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and son of Ukraine once said in this very chamber, “right matters.”
They’ve shown us once more that a tyrant’s lies will never blot out the courage and the goodness of a people determined to fight with—and for—one another.
That’s just one reason why I support President Biden’s request to dedicate at least $6.4 billion in humanitarian and military aid to help those under siege in Ukraine, and it’s why I’m doing everything in my power to help keep Ukrainians in the U.S. safe by granting them Temporary Protected Status.
Look, this is no 21st century Cold War. It’s Putin’s war. It’s a coward’s war.
Vladimir Putin is no savior. He will bring no glory to the Russian people. All he will bring them is travesty and economic ruin.
He is no champion. He is an embarrassment. And the history books will reflect as much.
Twenty-eight years ago, when we asked Ukraine to give up those nuclear weapons, they did so, choosing peace. Choosing to end the threat of bloodshed and destruction. Choosing democracy.
So now, we must stand with them as they so desperately seek peace once more. They have chosen democracy, time and again. Today, and all the days that this terrible war rages on, it is time for this democracy to choose them.
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