On the recordMarch 12, 2025
Mr. President, I returned Sunday night from 2 days in Ukraine. It was my third trip since the war began, and it came at a perilous and difficult time. A week earlier, President Trump had blown up the meeting with President Zelenskyy, starting an argument in front of cameras that made the United States look like a weak bully. He gave away two of Ukraine's primary goals: regaining their territory and becoming a member of NATO. The result is a weakened hand in negotiations with Russia. And President Trump also cut off security and intelligence to Ukraine, leaving them blind and at risk of losing ground. So I made a decision to travel to Ukraine to show my support for the Ukrainian people and to bring back information--what I would learn on the ground--about how these policy changes were going to impact the war. What I saw showed me just why we cannot give up on the Ukrainian people and why it is important to our security to keep Putin from winning. Of course, the Ukrainians want this war to end. They want it to end more than anybody else. But any agreement has to protect Ukraine's security, and it can't be a giveaway to Putin. This war started with what Putin thought would be a 3-day operation to take Kyiv and then control all of Ukraine. Now we are 3 years later, and that hasn't happened. The Ukrainian people, with security and intelligence assistance from us and from our allies, have been fighting for every inch of their homeland.…





