Madam President, let me first echo the comments of Senator McConnell, as well as Senator Schumer earlier, in wishing Sara Schwartzman the very best in her next undertaking. Whatever the challenge may be, I hope the hours are better because…
Madam President, let me first echo the comments of Senator McConnell, as well as Senator Schumer earlier, in wishing Sara Schwartzman the very best in her next undertaking.
Whatever the challenge may be, I hope the hours are better because I know that the sacrifices made by you and members of our staff because of our peculiar scheduling in the Senate have caused some strains and stress and pressure and hardship.
But thank you so much for making the Senate better with your service every single day.
Lithuania and Belarus
Madam President, I have tried to visualize this experience so many times: It was in July of 1911, and a ship arrived in Baltimore from Germany. A family came down the gangplank. One of the members of the family was my grandmother, and she brought her three children. One of them was a 2-year-old little girl--blonde-haired--named Ona, my mother.
How they managed to navigate their way through Baltimore and catch a train to East St. Louis, IL, I will never know because there were virtually none of them able to speak English, but they did. They arrived, and I grew up the son of a Lithuanian immigrant who was proud of what her family left behind and prouder still of what they found in this great country as Lithuanian Americans.
I have had a special attachment and interest in the Baltic States-- and particularly Lithuania--ever since. It has been my good fortune to follow their history from Soviet occupation and oppression to freedom and democracy today.
If you go on a search engine on your computer and type in the word ``fearless,'' don't be surprised if the map of Lithuania pops up. This small nation, 2.6 million in population, has done some remarkable things in history and remarkable still in modern history.
For half a century, millions lived under the tyranny and oppression of the Soviet Union. Before I was elected to public office, I went to visit Vilnius in Lithuania in 1978, and I saw Soviet rule firsthand. I am glad I did because it is such a sharp contrast to the Lithuania of today.
In the late 1980s, things began to change, particularly in the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Who can forget when 2 million people--2 million people--joined hands across these three nations to form a 420-mile Baltic Chain of Freedom in August of 1989. Not long thereafter, in February of the following year, Lithuania held its first free elections since World War II, voting for the country's first post-war noncommunist government. Immediately thereafter, the new Parliament voted to make Lithuania the first occupied Soviet republic to declare independence. Lithuania's bold move was followed later that year by Latvia and Estonia.
These brave efforts culminated a year later in February of 1991 when the Lithuanian people voted for independence. Those brave Lithuanians 30 years ago, including my friend, music professor, and national leader Vytautas Landsbergis, led that country back to democracy.
That Lithuanian effort three decades ago is still alive today. As a vibrant and vital member of the European Union and NATO, this small and brave nation is standing firm against renewed Russian aggression and now Chinese economic intimidation and defending heroic efforts to end tyranny in Belarus. It is one of the most vocal countries on Earth in defending democratic values and norms. Is it because they have a nuclear stockpile? No. A massive army? No. They are just determined, principled people who are courageous.
Some years ago, I visited the Lithuanian town of Rukla, where U.S. and German forces were rotating through as part of the European Reassurance Initiative aimed at keeping the Baltic safe from Russian aggression. There was good reason for it. They knew they had to take seriously what Putin might do against them.
Russia, under Vladimir Putin, has undertaken regular military, cyber, and political efforts to destabilize Lithuania and the Baltic States, but Lithuania will not be bullied. And I am glad that in the just- passed National Defense Authorization Act, we reaffirmed our commitment to Baltic security in the amendment that I offered.
Lithuania is also standing firm against the giant nation of China, which is trying to cut off supplies and punish the Lithuanian economy simply because the Lithuanians have established trade ties with Taiwan. Yet again, Lithuania will not be bullied.
On Lithuania's immediate border, there is a heroic struggle to end the last dictator in Europe, Lukashenko in Belarus. Most of us remember last year when this Belarusian dictator, Lukashenko, once again, after the bogus election results were announced, proceeded to jail those who had the temerity to run against him in the election. That has become normal with this man. This dictator, if somebody shows the nerve to run against him, will announce that he has beaten them by 80 percent-plus and then put them in jail.
When popular social media personality Sergei Tikhanovsky found himself arbitrarily jailed, his wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya courageously stepped in to run in his place. She probably won that election, but of course Lukashenko would never allow those results to be announced. So what did she do after the election, her husband in jail? She fled Belarus. Where did she go for safety for herself and her children? Lithuania. Not surprisingly, Lithuania. She found a welcoming nation next door, and she continues her struggle for a free and democratic Belarus out of Vilnius, Lithuania.
Belarus and Russia have retaliated against Lithuania with cruel and manufactured migrant flows and other intimidation, but once again, Lithuania will not be bullied.
Secretary of State Blinken understands the importance of this Lithuanian nation and continues to make sure they know they have friends in the United States. He recently hosted Lithuanian Foreign Minister and grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis at the State Department and then traveled to the Baltic States to reaffirm American solidarity.
Blinken said clearly at the State Department that Foreign Minister Landsbergis ``has been such a strong voice for democracy and human rights not just in Lithuania, but around the world.'' I couldn't agree more. I couldn't be more proud.
So let's use this 30th anniversary of Lithuanian independence to stand firm with our brave ally and recommit to our continued support for our Baltic allies through economic and security cooperation. Doing so will help ensure
the next 30 years of the longstanding U.S.-Baltic friendship are equally strong and fruitful.
In early 2011, a trip through these same Baltic countries gave me one more extraordinary experience in my Senate career. I went on a road trip from the free, democratic Lithuania back in time to the closed, totalitarian nation of Belarus. Crossing over that border was like driving onto a Hollywood movie set. I looked along the roads for telephone poles or evidence of electricity and found none. It looked like a bucolic, rural village, mile after mile after mile, indicating how economic development has still yet to arrive in Belarus.
You see, this last dictatorship of Europe held a Presidential election in December 2010, and I wanted to be there in 2011 to meet with the families of those who had the temerity to run against Lukashenko and were in jail. So I drove from Vilnius to Minsk to meet with those family members. They had been arrested by the security services of Belarus, which are still called the KGB.
It was a sobering meeting. Many tears were shed. Fortunately, over time, by working at it doggedly, we eventually saw the release of all the brave Belarusians who had been jailed at that time.
Yet, tragically, the Belarusian people found themselves in the same outrageous situation last year when Lukashenko jailed these candidates with the courage to run, including Sergei Tikhanovsky.
Some of you may have read the outstanding profile about his wife, Svetlana, in this month's New Yorker. It is entitled ``The Accidental Revolutionary Leading Belarus's Uprising.'' It describes how her campaign speeches galvanized boisterous crowds. She had a very simple message to the Belarusian people and the courage to say it. She said she was ``fed up with living in humiliation and fear'' in Belarus. Lukashenko, this mighty dictator, didn't even have the courage to debate this woman.
She likely won that election, as we know, but we will never know the official outcome because Lukashenko wouldn't allow it.
I was proud to host her last year with my Senate colleagues Senator Shaheen and Sullivan. And I am glad to see that President Biden met with her as well.
She is a brave woman, soldiering on, despite the fact that the Belarusians announced just a week ago that her husband has now been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Tragically, since Lukashenko stole that most recent election, he has continued to double down on his outrageous behavior, including forcing down a commercial airline in May to arrest the Belarusian activists and just this week, after months of closed hearings, that 18-year prison sentence for her husband.
Five other defendants, including another Presidential candidate and a journalist from Radio Free Europe, received an equally outrageous sentence from Lukashenko. What a waste; what an outright theft of the Belarusian people's future.
These people must be freed, and we must continue to support Ms. Tikhanovskaya's effort, and her husband, and the thousands upon thousands who peacefully protest on her behalf.
Lithuania
Madam President, this morning I was listening to the news, as I came in, on National Public Radio. And I will close by just noting that the most recent report led me to make this statement on the floor today.
It seems that the Lithuanians have been compelled to close their Embassy in Beijing. The Chinese Government will no longer promise the most basic tenet of ambassadorial representation: diplomatic immunity. They are still angry because this little country of 2.6 million people is establishing trade relations with Taiwan.
The Chinese have said they are cutting off all exports and imports to Lithuania, putting pressure on them for their political courage. It won't work, I might say, to Prime Minister Xi. These people are not going to be bullied or pushed around. They have shown an extraordinary amount of courage. And I hope all of the world, particularly their great allies here in the United States, understand that these Baltic States--and my mother's country of Lithuania--are standing up for values which we all treasure as Americans.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.