Political Quotes

“Madam President, I want to start by talking about Ukraine because we have a lot of different opinions here on it. So I wanted to take a moment and discuss this issue of Ukraine because there has been a lot of talk about it. I have been watching. As the Senator from Kentucky has just pointed to a moment ago, there has been a lot of debate over the last 5 days about the topic of Ukraine. I want to set the stage for why what is happening in Ukraine happened. But let me just, first, preface it by saying what is happening there is not irrelevant to this country and certainly not unimportant. To set the stage, we have to go back a little bit. In 2014, Vladimir Putin actually invaded Ukraine. He didn't admit it was his people. He sent in these special forces. They were dressed in costumes. He pretended that wasn't his people, but it was. The rationale was this. I want to go back for a moment with the history about Ukraine. Ukraine was supposed to join--wanted to join-- Europe. There was this push inside of Ukraine to join the European Union and to become European in its orientation. Putin didn't like it and began threatening and pressuring the then-President of Ukraine. The then-President of Ukraine, under that pressure from Putin, backed down. Upon backing down, he faced a fierce public resistance to that decision. As a result of that, the then-President of Ukraine ordered security forces into the street to attack protesters and crack down.…”