[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 802 Introduced in House (IH)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 802
Affirming the United States vital interest in liberty in Europe and
resolute support for Ukraine in its efforts to counter Russian
aggression and continue its trajectory among the community of
democracies.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 16, 2020
Ms. Kaptur (for herself, Mr. Harris, Mr. Quigley, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mr.
Rush, Mr. Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Cook, Mr. Cicilline,
Mr. Costa, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Lamborn, Ms. Jackson Lee, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Price
of North Carolina, Mr. Weber of Texas, and Mr. Lipinski) submitted the
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Affirming the United States vital interest in liberty in Europe and
resolute support for Ukraine in its efforts to counter Russian
aggression and continue its trajectory among the community of
democracies.
Whereas Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO)
Partnership for Peace Program in 1994, and has been a longstanding NATO-
aspirant country;
Whereas at the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit, member nations' heads of state and
government issued a communique stating, ``NATO welcomes Ukraine's and
Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed
today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations
have made valuable contribution to Alliance operations.'';
Whereas Ukraine and the European Union have entered into an Association
Agreement, which pro-Russian, corrupt Ukrainian President Victor
Yanukovych refused to conclude in 2013;
Whereas, in 2014, the Ukrainian people bravely rose up in the Revolution of
Dignity, leading to the ouster of President Yanukovych;
Whereas, as a result, Russian Forces illegally invaded, occupied, and annexed
Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014, as well as led and supported
illegal military, paramilitary, and other separatist activity in the
Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of eastern Ukraine since April 2014;
Whereas the Kremlin's aggression in Ukraine has led to the deaths of more than
13,000 people and the internal displacement of more than 1,400,000;
Whereas Russian-controlled separatists continue to violate ceasefire agreements,
including through bringing heavy weaponry near civilian populations and
the line of contact;
Whereas Russian-controlled separatists have been targeting civilian basic needs
facilities such as water filtration systems, heat and electricity
facilities, powerlines, and other critical services;
Whereas, on July 17, 2014, Russian-backed separatists shot down Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 tragically killing 298 innocents;
Whereas Russia has a deeply concerning human rights record in Russian-occupied
Crimea and territories in eastern Ukraine, including persecution of
religious minorities such as the Crimean Tatars, and arbitrary arrests
and disappearances of journalists and civil society activists;
Whereas international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions, to
which Russia is a signatory, requires Russia to respect and protect the
religious freedom of the inhabitants of the territory it occupies and
controls, or controls through organized nonstate armed groups it
commands, and holds Russia responsible for violations of religious
freedom in this territory;
Whereas according to the Department of State's International Religious Freedom
Reports, and other reporting, violations of religious freedom in the
Crimea region of Ukraine since Russia invaded and occupied the territory
have included abduction, detention and imprisonment, torture, forced
psychiatric hospitalizations, fines, restrictions on missionary
activities, confiscations of property, including churches and meeting
halls, expulsions and obstructions to reentry, denying registration of
religious groups, vandalism, fines, and banning peaceful religious
groups, and targeted groups have included Muslim Crimean Tatars, the
Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formerly the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of
the Kyivan Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Protestant
Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses;
Whereas according to the Department of State's International Religious Freedom
Reports, violations of religious freedom in the part of the Donbas
region of Ukraine controlled by armed groups commanded by Russia have
included detention and imprisonment, torture, confiscation of property,
including churches and meeting halls, physical assaults and threats of
violence, vandalism, fines, restrictions on missionary activities,
religious services, ceremonies, gatherings, and literature, and banning
of peaceful religious groups, and targeted groups have included the
Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formerly the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv
Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Protestant
Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses;
Whereas Emir-Usein Kukus, a Crimean Tatar and vocal dissident of Russia's
oppression in Crimea, was arrested, beaten, interrogated, and illegally
transported to Rostov-on-Don in the Russian Federation by the Federal
Security Service (FSB) where he remains in Russian detainment;
Whereas Russia seeks to undermine democratic institutions in Ukraine and
globally through hybrid means, including conventional warfare,
cyberattacks, weaponizing energy, election intervention, disinformation
campaigns, and paramilitary operations;
Whereas Russia seeks to use the Nord Stream II and Turk Stream natural gas
pipelines to bypass Ukrainian transit routes and weaken that nation's
energy security and economy;
Whereas the Russian Federal Security Service Border Service illegally fired upon
and captured 3 Ukrainian Navy vessels, including 24 Ukrainian
crewmembers, that were exercising Ukraine's right to navigation through
the Kerch Strait on the way to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol in
November 2018;
Whereas this naval aggression is part of Russia's strategy of ``creeping
annexation'', to slowly chip away at Ukraine's sovereignty;
Whereas the Ukrainian government states that Russia is holding at least 113
Ukrainian political prisoners in Russian territory and Russian-occupied
Crimea in contravention of international law;
Whereas it is estimated that more than 100 other prisoners are being held in the
Russia-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine;
Whereas Russia, together with the United States and the United Kingdom, affirmed
its commitment ``to respect the independence and sovereignty and the
existing borders of Ukraine'', as well as the ``obligation to refrain
from the threat or use of force'' against Ukraine in the December 1994
Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, in exchange for Ukraine's
voluntary and peaceful willingness to relinquish its nuclear weapons;
Whereas, since 2014, the United States Government has imposed sanctions against
Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea, invasion of eastern
Ukraine, and other malign activities in Ukraine;
Whereas Congress passed the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions
Act of 2017 with overwhelming bipartisan support, which codified and
strengthened these sanctions;
Whereas Congress has provided close to $4 billion in critical security and
development assistance to Ukraine to help that nation deter Russian
aggression, strengthen democratic institutions, and to continue its
euro-Atlantic trajectory;
Whereas United States servicemembers in cooperation with NATO forces provide
critical training to Ukrainian ground force units at the Yavoriv Combat
Training Center;
Whereas United States cooperation with Ukraine has yielded valuable lessons into
the evolution of Russia's hybrid warfare tactics thereby enhancing
United States readiness;
Whereas Ukraine held Presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019, which the
international community lauded as free and fair;
Whereas, since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine's civil society has
played a critical role in advancing democratic and rule of law reforms,
sometimes paying with their lives, as was the case of Kateryna Handziuk,
who died on November 4, 2018, of injuries sustained during a July 2018
acid attack;
Whereas, in April 2019, Ukraine launched a special anticorruption court to
counter Ukraine's longstanding problems of corruption that is to be free
from political influence;
Whereas Ukraine's central bank rightfully nationalized PrivatBank due to its
previous owners' rampant corruption and theft from the Ukrainian people;
Whereas PrivatBank must remain independent from any oligarch influence, must not
be returned to its previous ownership, and is a test case for Ukraine's
commitment to anticorruption reform efforts;
Whereas, in January 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople recognized
an autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, thereby officially granting
it independence from the Russian Orthodox Church; and
Whereas it is the longstanding policy of the United States not to recognize
territorial changes that are the result of illegal use of force: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) reaffirms the commitment of the United States to
support the democratically elected Government of Ukraine and
its people;
(2) reaffirms the support of the United States for the
integration of Ukraine with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization and the European Union;
(3) commends the Ukrainian people's commitment to liberty
and critical progress made since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity
despite immense pressure from Russian aggression and hybrid
warfare tactics;
(4) condemns Russia's continued aggression in Ukraine
including the illegal occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine;
(5) calls for Russia to immediately remove all personnel
and equipment belonging to its security or armed forces and
proxies from the sovereign territory of Ukraine, and for
Ukraine to regain control of its border with Russia, including
sections now held by separatist forces;
(6) calls for the immediate release of Ukrainian human
rights defenders and dissidents illegally arrested by Russian
forces and their proxies;
(7) condemns any form of religious persecution and
violation of religious freedoms by Russia or armed groups
commanded by Russia in the illegally occupied Donbas and Crimea
regions of Ukraine;
(8) reaffirms opposition to the Nord Stream II natural gas
pipeline, which is political in nature, and calls for enactment
of sanctions with respect to these pipelines;
(9) expresses support for increased United States security
and capacity-building assistance to Ukraine, and an increase in
funds for such assistance;
(10) urges the United States to continue to strengthen
critical efforts to enhance Ukrainian capacity to defend
itself, including via enhanced cyber cooperation, military
training and provision of military equipment, countering
disinformation, assistance to support psychosocial care and job
integration for Ukrainian veterans, supporting market access
for Ukrainian rural women, and other critical programs;
(11) supports the Ukrainian government in its efforts to
achieve a peaceful resolution to the international armed
conflict in eastern Ukraine caused by Russia's ongoing military
aggression and illegal occupation, through the establishment of
a full ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian and Russia-backed
illegal military forces, and the fulfillment of other elements
of the Minsk Agreements and appointing a United States diplomat
to play an active role in support of the negotiations and
ensuring Ukraine's security;
(12) calls for Russia to release all Ukrainians detained by
Russian forces or their proxies for their activities on
sovereign Ukrainian territory;
(13) calls on the United States Government, United States
allies in Europe, the United Nations, the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe, and international partners
to continue to pressure Russia to uphold its international
obligations; and
(14) continues to oppose Russian threats to the energy
security of United States allies in Europe and encourages the
Government of the United States to further support the
diversification of energy supplies to Europe.
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