Discussion · Senate
Thom Tillis Republican
“Russia attacked Ukraine, but Russia is failing and losing tens of thousands of troops. I want the president to use the full power of our sanctions against Russia. I also want us and our European allies to keep sending Ukraine intelligence and military supplies so they can survive the winter.”
“Thank you, Senator Armstrong and Senator Curtis. I think what we all left with is an unambiguous view that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim. We all need to understand that when Russia was lying to us and saying they were just doing a training exercise and then turned it into a special military operation, our best intelligence estimates indicated to us--not publicly but in a private setting at the time--that Russia would likely have air superiority within about 3 or 4 days and total control of the ground within a week or two. Putin has failed. He never achieved anything resembling that. He has sent tens of thousands of Russians into a meat grinder. It is so bad now that he is talking about conscription beyond the forced conscription he has now. And get this--he is forcing young Ukrainians to kill Ukrainians because they are brainwashing these young people into thinking they are subhuman. He is not conscripting Russians yet. He is likely going to. But what he is doing is letting people out of prison and giving them U.S. dollars--$40,000 and $60,000 bonuses--to go on the battlefield. One of them was a prisoner of war. He was a sexual predator right out of prison. His family was given $60,000 to go fight. Now he has been captured, and he is going to be used to possibly trade to get a prisoner of war back to Ukraine. Right now, 30,000 Russians are dying every month. They are being plowed down, and they are making no ground. You heard Senator Curtis talk about a snail moving more quickly. That is mathematically true. If the snail started to get to where they are on the frontline right now, they would have beaten the Russians. So the last 10 minutes we have here before we have a UC coming up, I think, at 5:05 is to talk about what is next. What I think is next is asking the President, encouraging the President to use to the maximum extent possible the sanctions capabilities that Congress sent to him over the past couple of weeks to put the pressure on Russia, to not be the first President who equivocates against a Russian dictator, to continue the tradition of getting an opportunity. When you can win against communism, when you can win against totalitarianism, you do everything you can to win. And guess what. It will not require a single drop of American blood on the battlefield. All the Ukrainians want is support. All they want is intelligence. All they want is to make sure that the European nations continue to do what they are doing and the United States maybe do a little bit more, and that has as much to do with sanctions as it has to do with materiel support. I, for one, hope we can do both. If I have time remaining, I do want to talk about what I think is a dreadful trend in the last year and a half in terms of materiel support, but I would like to hear from Senator Curtis and Senator Armstrong about what we think we need to do to help Ukrainians before they go into the winter, which is when they are most vulnerable, because I firmly believe that if they make it through this winter, Putin’s days are numbered and rightly so. Senator Curtis.”
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Speech in the House
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Thank you, Senator Armstrong and Senator Curtis. I think what we all left with is an unambiguous view that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim. We all need to understand that when Russia was lying to us and saying they were just doing a training exercise and then turned it into a special military operation, our best intelligence estimates indicated to us--not publicly but in a private setting at the time--that Russia would likely have air superiority within about 3 or 4 days and total control of the ground within a week or two. Putin has failed. He never achieved anything resembling that. He has sent tens of thousands of Russians into a meat grinder. It is so bad now that he is talking about conscription beyond the forced conscription he has now. And get this--he is forcing young Ukrainians to kill Ukrainians because they are brainwashing these young people into thinking they are subhuman. He is not conscripting Russians yet. He is likely going to. But what he is doing is letting people out of prison and giving them U.S. dollars--$40,000 and $60,000 bonuses--to go on the battlefield. One of them was a prisoner of war. He was a sexual predator right out of prison. His family was given $60,000 to go fight. Now he has been captured, and he is going to be used to possibly trade to get a prisoner of war back to Ukraine. Right now, 30,000 Russians are dying every month. They are being plowed down, and they are making no ground. You heard Senator Curtis talk about a snail moving more quickly. That is mathematically true. If the snail started to get to where they are on the frontline right now, they would have beaten the Russians. So the last 10 minutes we have here before we have a UC coming up, I think, at 5:05 is to talk about what is next. What I think is next is asking the President, encouraging the President to use to the maximum extent possible the sanctions capabilities that Congress sent to him over the past couple of weeks to put the pressure on Russia, to not be the first President who equivocates against a Russian dictator, to continue the tradition of getting an opportunity. When you can win against communism, when you can win against totalitarianism, you do everything you can to win. And guess what. It will not require a single drop of American blood on the battlefield. All the Ukrainians want is support. All they want is intelligence. All they want is to make sure that the European nations continue to do what they are doing and the United States maybe do a little bit more, and that has as much to do with sanctions as it has to do with materiel support. I, for one, hope we can do both. If I have time remaining, I do want to talk about what I think is a dreadful trend in the last year and a half in terms of materiel support, but I would like to hear from Senator Curtis and Senator Armstrong about what we think we need to do to help Ukrainians before they go into the winter, which is when they are most vulnerable, because I firmly believe that if they make it through this winter, Putin’s days are numbered and rightly so. Senator Curtis.