Today is Estonian Independence Day.
On this day in 1918, the Estonians declared their independence from the Russian Empire.
They had to fight a war against both Germans and the army of Soviet Russia to secure their independence in a treaty in 1920.
In that treaty, Russia [renounced] any claim to Estonian territory and recognized the independence and sovereignty of Estonia forever. Forever lasted only 20 years.
The Soviet Union illegally occupied Estonia, as well as Latvia and Lithuania, for the next 50 years.
Ten percent of the population of the Baltic countries was deported or sent to labor camps.
The United States always saw the occupation of the Baltics as illegitimate and recognized their sovereignty throughout the entire Cold War.
In the depths of the Cold War, it was hard to imagine that the Baltics would ever, ever regain their independence.
Today, to the contrary, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are vibrant, prosperous and free. And of course, that irritates Putin – the KGB Dictator of Russia.
Today is also the three-year anniversary of Russia’s brutal, all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Three years ago, Russian tanks were rolling toward Kyiv, and we all thought a total takeover of Ukraine by Russia was inevitable.
As we know, instead, Ukrainians, fighting for their homeland, stopped and then pushed back the Russians, taking back 50 percent of the territory the Russians initially occupied.
Today, Russia continues to gradually capture Ukrainian territory by force.
With the help of North Korean soldiers, the Russian military is making small territorial gains, but at incredible cost in Russian lives and equipment.
According to defense calculations, at the rate Russia is advancing in Ukraine today, it would take 83 years to reach Kyiv.
Three years ago, we thought Ukraine didn’t stand a chance against the mighty Russian military.
Everyone assumed Russia would conquer all of Ukraine, and do it very quickly.
Three years in, the Russian military can’t even conquer the territories in the east of Ukraine that Putin claims to have already annexed.
In the areas that Russia has occupied, churches have been closed and Evangelicals persecuted for their faith. Civilians have been tortured, killed and tossed in mass graves.
Children have been kidnapped – at least 20,000 – and are being brainwashed to forget who they are and adopt a Russian identity where they now live.
The Ukrainian people want peace desperately, and I hope it comes soon.
The Ukrainian people want this peace because that’s best for them [and] the entire globe.
But, just like their Baltic friends before them, Ukrainians will never concede their sovereignty and they will never give up on their countrymen who are currently under brutal occupation.
The question is, what will make KGB Putin give up his imperial dreams of reestablishing the Soviet empire?
As we think about how we end this war in Ukraine, there’s a lot going on right now.
I don’t think we want to forget that Putin has said very definitely, over the last 20 years in speeches, he wants to reestablish the Soviet empire.
I think this citizen of the United States – this Senator – ought to consider that sometimes [people are] driven by ideological waves and tend to think [they’ve] got all the answers.
We can remember that there were a lot of conservative Republicans during the 1930s that thought Hitler was on the right track to bring peace to the world.
And then we had a lot of liberals, at that time, even through World War II, who thought that Joseph Stalin’s murderous regime was the answer to all of our questions, and all the problems that this world has.
Now, we have people who think Russia is somehow a good nation.
They’ve institutionalized corruption in that country. They murder their political opponents. They imprison citizens for giving mild criticism [of] the country. They hold American citizens hostage. And hundreds of thousands of their people have been killed in this useless war.
Conservatives imagine that Russia doesn’t exist today, as I just described, so they’re willing to sit down with people that have no political liberties, no political opposition and it seems to me that’s something that this Senator would not do.
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