Political Quotes

“Madam President, as Senator McCain makes his way to the floor, we are trying to figure out what to do as a nation--along with our allies in Europe and throughout the world--about Ukraine and really what to do with Putin. In my view, this is a symptom of a greater problem. Crimea had been a part of Russia for a very long time, but in 1954, I believe it was, Crimea became part of a sovereign nation called the Ukraine through an agreement. In 1994 the Ukrainians--after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which was the third largest nuclear power in the world-- agreed to turn their nuclear weapons back over to the Russian Federation as part of the Budapest agreement. In return for receiving the weapons, the Russian Government promised to honor the territorial integrity of the Ukraine, and we were part of that deal. I guess no one really fleshed out what honoring the territorial integrity of the Ukraine would mean, but clearly, in 1994 when the Ukrainian people gave up the nuclear weapons they possessed to the Russians--and we were part of the deal where we were going to guarantee their territorial integrity for the swap--no one envisioned that Russia would move into Crimea because they don't like the political dynamic in Kiev. If the people of the Ukraine want to move west, that is not a reason to basically abrogate the 1994 agreement.…”