Likening Putin to
Hitler, Mississippi Lawmaker Calls for More Air Defense for Ukraine
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, declared on the floor of the US Senate that “Putin should
not achieve through negotiation what he has not managed to achieve on the
battlefield.”
In his remarks, Wicker outlined on January 14 the key
principles negotiations should center around, and commended President Trump for
building consensus with our allies.
Read the Senator’s
speech as delivered below:
Mr. President, we live in a dangerous time. There are a
number of flashpoints all around the globe. In this hemisphere, in Europe, and
the Indo-pacific. But I want to remind my colleagues today that,
still, the most dangerous thing going on around the world today is Vladimir
Putin’s war against freedom and the West in Ukraine. And I would point out that
for the past year, Vladimir Putin has mocked the Ukraine peace process by
steadily escalating his attacks on his
neighboring country. He’s recently launched the
biggest air attack the conflict has ever seen and shown repeatedly that he is
not interested in peace talks. He gives lip service to peace talks, but
his acts show that he’s not interested.
Now, by contrast, in the last few weeks, the United States,
Ukraine, and our European friends have come together on
a common negotiating position centered on several key principles.
Here are the key points:
Ukraine should not be forced to give up the sovereign
territory it deserves and it currently controls.
Also, Putin should not achieve through negotiation what he
has not managed to achieve on the battlefield – and there have been great
disappointments to Putin on the battlefield.
In addition, the United States should play a role in
Ukraine’s security guarantees on a permanent basis. The Senate should
ratify these security guarantees if they’re ever agreed to.
In the meantime, Mr. President, the Ukrainian people
should be assisted in continuing to fight for their freedom.
I commend President Trump, President Zelenskyy, and European
leaders for continuing to come together
to reach a consensus. As we seek to end this brutal,
unprovoked war, I urge everyone in
Washington, in Kyiv, in the great capitals of
Europe to remain united and to remember who we are dealing with in the
form and person of Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin is unrepentant. He is ever, and will always
be, the KGB agent. He is a dictator with decades
of bloodshed on his hands. He is the biggest thief
in the history of the world, a war criminal who should be behind
bars at this moment, Mr. President. And of
course, Putin is a liar. When Vladimir Putin smiles to
American negotiators, he acts as our friend, and he acts as if we
believe he’s our friend. We have no reason to
smile back at Vladimir Putin or trust him with anything but caution
and contempt.
After four years, Putin knows a Russian victory is not
inevitable. More and more, the American people see this and know
this. A November poll found that 70 percent of Americans do not
trust Putin to honor any peace agreement with Ukraine. He is
cut from the same cloth as terrorists all over the world
and terrorists down through history.
In Putin’s attacks on civilians for example, we see
parallels with the Hamas terrorists who rampaged through Israeli neighborhoods
on October 7th. The terrorists are Putin’s friends.
And don’t forget this, and
sometimes it’s not publicized as it ought to be, Putin has
abducted over 20,000 Ukrainian children and subjected many to brainwashing
schemes. In those horrors, we see the likes of Xi Jinping
and his Uyghur re-education camps.
Putin routinely locks dissidents in jail—just like his
kindred spirits in other censorship regimes. This tyrant who wants to be
treated as a peer in the world’s great halls of democracy should be known by
the company he keeps. When the brutal Syrian dictator Bashar
al-Assad was toppled, thankfully, where did Bashar
al-Assad run? He ran for safe haven to Moscow. That’s where
he went to be under the protection of Vladimir Putin who seeks to
make us believe that he is an honest negotiator.
Nicolas Maduro was wisely counseled to flee
Venezuela. If he had run, where would he have run, Mr.
President? He would have run to Moscow. For decades,
Russia has been a friend to the murderous Cuban regime. And
now, as the Supreme Leader in Iran considers his options, where might
he go for refuge? The only place he could go
is Moscow. So that’s the company Vladimir
Putin keeps in the current day.
But Putin even echoes the likes of Adolf
Hitler. Putin routinely talks about—quote—“liberating”
the Russian-speaking Ukrainians living in the Donbas, and other areas of
Ukraine. This is the same vile, absurd pretext
that Adolf Hitler used when he invaded the German-speaking
regions of neighboring countries including Poland. That’s who
Vladimir Putin is.
Regrettably, the people of Russia are
led brutally by Putin, this world-historical villain.
Ukrainians will continue fighting against his unprovoked attacks, but not
because they hate peace. The Ukrainians continue to fight because
their alternative is the extinction of their
country. The West needs to stand with them. We need to stand
with Ukraine.
And we must keep assisting our
friends. We need to send a clear message that Putin cannot wait us
out. In December, I'm grateful to say to my
colleagues, that Congress overwhelmingly passed and
President Donald Trump enthusiastically signed the National Defense
Authorization Act. That law extends the Ukraine Security
Assistance Initiative and our commitment to sharing intelligence with
Ukraine. Good for the President, and good for our friends in the
House and Senate.
Our allies across the Atlantic are taking the lead now,
as my colleague from Kentucky just pointed out, in
financing security assistance for Ukraine. NATO allies are buying
equipment from us in the United States and giving it
to Ukraine. I certainly applaud that, as all Americans should
Mr. President, the U.S. should increase the air defenses and
long-range strike capabilities that we are sending to Kyiv. More
than any other capabilities, these will help show Putin his military aims are
not achievable. For nearly four years, Ukrainians
have demonstrated their resolve. The West must continue to stand
resolved with them.
