{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=62CB8D5D-C6B5-48DE-8E9F-534FE7E3062C", "McConnell Remarks at McCain Institute Russia Task Force Event", "2025-07-30", "2025", "2025-07", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, delivered opening remarks at a McCain Institute event \u201cHighlighting Policy Recommendations for Post-War Russia.\u201d Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:\n\nIt\u2019s hard to think of a more appropriate home for the Task Force\u2019s important work than the McCain Institute, or a more fitting ringleader than a proud McCain alumnus like Dan Twining.\n\nMy good friend, John McCain, was so unapologetic and clear-eyed about the scope of America\u2019s interests. And he relished being the speck in Vladimir Putin\u2019s eye through his solidarity with the free peoples of eastern Europe\u2026\n\nHe supported the expansion of the greatest military alliance in the history of the world\u2026 And stood for the right of sovereign nations to choose their destiny.\n\nWhen Putin called the fall of the Soviet Union the \u201cgreatest political catastrophe of the 20th century,\u201d John understood that he meant it, and urged our colleagues to take Russia\u2019s neo-Soviet ambitions seriously.\n\nIn the not-so-distant past, that sort of clarity \u2013 acknowledging that Russia still threatened America\u2019s interests \u2013 could invite public scorn\u2026\n\n\u2026Like the sort of sanctimonious condemnation a certain former colleague of mine received from President Obama during a prime-time debate.\n\nWe heard that Putin would moderate\u2026 That his ambitions were limited\u2026 And that anyone who suggested otherwise was a dusty Cold Warrior past his prime.\n\nWell, to that I say: It is so good to be among friends!\n\n***\n\nNeedless to say, the importance of grappling with Russia\u2019s behavior and motivations can no longer be laughed away.\n\nWake-up call is perhaps the most tired phrase of the past three years.\n\nAnd yet that\u2019s exactly what Putin\u2019s escalation in 2022 was: an urgent, overdue, uncomfortable, and undeniable alarm.\n\nIt was a reminder that the realities of geopolitics don\u2019t care which region we\u2019d rather prioritize or what we\u2019d rather spend our treasure on. The bravery of Ukraine\u2019s defenders and the suffering of its civilians press us to remember that our enemies get a vote.\n\nThere are, of course, promising signs that the West has managed to free itself from the delusion that hegemonic aggressors can be appeased.\n\nReports of our European allies\u2019 rebuilding their military strength are not exaggerated.\n\nNearly all NATO members today are striving toward the Baltics\u2019 example of investment and readiness\u2026 And those who are not should hear from all of us.\n\nIn the process, allies are making overdue sacrifices to stamp out dependency on Russian energy\u2026\n\nThey\u2019re placing enormous investments in cutting-edge American-made weapons\u2026\n\nAnd they\u2019re proving willing to break domestic political china \u2013 even changing a Constitution or two \u2013 to unlock deeper and more sustained commitments to collective defense.\n\nThis transformation is real. It\u2019s well underway. And it\u2019ll be essential to securing America\u2019s interests in the coming decades.\n\nWhat about here at home? As friends of Ukraine, we may be tempted to dwell on the ways we drag behind this progress\u2026 and overlook the ways we underpin it.\n\nWe may rightly be frustrated by years of murky commitments, slow-walked assistance, fear of escalation, and confusion about who the aggressor is.\n\nBut I would suggest that, on this, America has much to be proud of.\n\nJust consider the cascading benefits of U.S. assistance to Ukraine: a small fraction of our defense budget has helped Ukraine resist and degrade a more powerful military aggressor.\n\nAfter years of talk and little action to address the shortcomings of our own arsenal and defense industrial base, we\u2019ve spurred massive investments in replenishing stocks and producing deterrent capabilities faster.\n\nBy partnering with the world\u2019s most experienced practitioners of drone warfare, we\u2019ve tapped into a wealth of knowledge about the changing nature of the modern battlefield. Ukraine\u2019s expertise is teaching America today what our forces will need to prevail tomorrow.\n\nAnd as NATO\u2019s biggest spender, America has encouraged much of our allies\u2019 transformation.\n\n***\n\nOf course, I don\u2019t mean to suggest that we\u2019ve escaped the gravitational pull of complacency and short-sightedness for good. Our allies\u2019 progress is not assured forever. European security \u2013 and trans-Atlantic security \u2013 is not some clock to be wound once and left alone.\n\nPerhaps the biggest lesson of 2022 \u2013 even bigger than the need to invest urgently today \u2013 is the importance of long-term commitments, and steady, annual investments in defense.\n\nAnd on this front, America must continue to lead by our example. We simply cannot expect allies to reach and sustain five percent if we\u2019re only willing to spend three-and-a-half, ourselves.\n\nA strategy to lead from behind is no strategy at all. And as the Task Force makes perfectly clear, this goes beyond spending targets \u2013 it\u2019s about presence, too.\n\nEven as our allies and partners build more lethal forces, there\u2019s still no more credible deterrent than American commitment.\n\nNo wonder European allies generously support rotational deployments of U.S. troops and invest in state-of-the-art training ranges for joint exercises. These commitments improve our collective readiness and interoperability, and they\u2019re worth sustaining.\n\nThe task of illustrating the strategic importance of Europe to America\u2019s security interests is not ours, alone. In fact, for years now, there\u2019s been no more effective communicator of what\u2019s at stake in Ukraine \u2013 strategically and morally \u2013 than Putin, himself.\n\nAs he continues to throw a generation into the meat-grinder of combat and target Ukrainian mothers and children at will, Putin is sending a clear message.\n\nAnd in the face of his brutal aggression and public revisionism, overwhelming majorities of Americans recognize Russia as our adversary\u2026 and see that the outcome of Putin\u2019s war of conquest matters immensely to us.\n\nMuch to the dismay of restrainers and isolationists who thought they\u2019d get to freelance American foreign policy, the President of the United States increasingly sees Putin\u2019s signals for what they are.\n\nThe President has been right to recognize Putin\u2019s play for time. He\u2019s been right to entertain proposals for new, secondary sanctions. Most importantly, he\u2019s been right to green-light further lethal assistance to Ukraine.\n\nI\u2019ve said this before: Stopping the killing is a noble goal, but the price of peace matters. And there will be no enduring peace unless Ukraine is equipped to credibly deter further aggression from Russia.\n\n***\n\nThe appetite of neo-Soviet imperialism does not end with Ukraine. How do we know?\n\nBecause Putin\u2019s predecessors subjugated far wider swaths of Europe\u2026\n\nBecause he invaded Georgia\u2026\n\nAnd because, as we speak, his troops are in Moldova, too!\n\nNations that have spent centuries in Russia\u2019s shadow do not stumble westward by accident.\n\nFinland and Sweden did not join NATO out of symbolic solidarity with Ukraine.\n\nThey did it because they know that Putin wants more.\n\nSo the Task Force is right to take the long view and grapple seriously with what comes next.\n\nWhat comes next for the trans-Atlantic alliance?\n\nWhat comes next for the increasingly aligned authoritarians working to undermine U.S. interests and influence?\n\nWhat comes next for America and our ability to defend these interests and preserve this influence?\n\nAs you put it, our deterrence is not divisible. And I would add: this is because our credibility is not divisible.\n\nNo U.S. ally in the Indo-Pacific has time to waste on the notion that the implications of deterrence in Europe are confined to a separate sphere of influence.\n\nNo ally in Europe can afford to miss the crystal-clear connection between Russian aggression and support from China, North Korea, and Iran.\n\nThe consequences of America\u2019s strategic decisions still ripple across oceans and continents with equal speed.\n\nAnd a headline that reads \u201cRussia Wins, America Loses\u201d will read as clearly in Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang as it does here in Washington.\n\nAvoiding that outcome will take more work from all of us. Thank you for all you\u2019re doing.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:48:13Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=62CB8D5D-C6B5-48DE-8E9F-534FE7E3062C"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.9799841102212667, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}