Jeanne Shaheen: “Certainly, the Presiding Officer would agree with me that in the Democratic caucus we are also united with the…”

“Certainly, the Presiding Officer would agree with me that in the Democratic caucus we are also united with the Republican caucus in wanting to support Ukraine to ensure that they can determine their own future and to hold Vladimir Putin accountable. As you say, hopefully, diplomacy will win out, and there will be some way in which we can work with Vladimir Putin to address some of his concerns. We are certainly not going to allow Putin and Russia to determine Ukraine's future--to say to Ukraine ``You can't join NATO'' or to say to Europe and NATO ``You can't expand into Europe if countries want to join.'' Hopefully, he will choose a path that is going to be good not just for Europe and the United States and Ukraine but for Russia, because, as the German Chancellor said to us last week when he met with a number of Senators: In the long run, this will not be good for Russia--for its energy future--because Europe is going to get off Russian energy a lot faster if Russia invades Ukraine, and it is not going to be good for Russia's standing either in Europe or in the world. So, hopefully, Putin will choose the reasonable approach, which is that he will choose diplomacy and not choose war.…”