Jeanne Shaheen: “I am pleased to come to the floor today with my friend and colleague Senator Tillis. He and I have cochaired the Senate…”

“I am pleased to come to the floor today with my friend and colleague Senator Tillis. He and I have cochaired the Senate NATO Observer Group. We have traveled together on a number of occasions, and we just came back on Tuesday from a very brief trip to Ukraine. We were joined by Senator Bennet, who is not able to join us right now. But I think it is important for us to come to the floor and to talk about what we saw and what we heard in Ukraine. It was incredibly powerful to travel to Ukraine, to see firsthand the situation on the ground there, and we visited a number of places during the day. We met with residents in downtown Kyiv who had lost their homes in the January 1 missile attack there, an attack that landed only about 2 blocks from the Presidential Palace. While we were there actually meeting with the folks who had lost their homes, the air raid sirens went off, which is a pretty usual occurrence apparently in Kyiv. Fortunately, it was not aimed at us in downtown Kyiv but another outlying community. But it was a warning of more incoming Russian missiles. And I have seen the reports in the last couple of days that say that Vladimir Putin wants peace, but I have to say I am skeptical because if he really wants peace, nothing is stopping him from calling off those missile and drone attacks, attacks that are not targeting just Ukraine's military but that are targeting civilians throughout the country.…”