Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Co-Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the U.S. Helsinki Commission) today questioned expert witnesses at a hearing entitled “Behind Enemy Lines: Life in Ukraine’s Newly Occupied Territories.”
At the end of last month, Co-Chairman Cohen introduced a resolution with Helsinki Commission ranking member Joe Wilson of South Carolina calling Russian actions in Ukraine a genocide. Today, the Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, along with Senator Jim Risch of Idaho introduced the Senate companion bill also calling Russian actions in Ukraine a genocide.
In his opening statement, the Co-Chairman said in part:
“It’s clear from what Putin has done since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine that his goal has been to erase Ukrainian identity. He wants to extend Russia’s perimeters in the whole spirit of Peter the Great but equally wants to destroy the Ukrainian people for having the audacity to declare themselves, and be, an independent nation, which they’ve been for now nearly 30 years, and for not capitulating to his wants and desires…If he’s not stopped here, he’ll have to be stopped somewhere else…Ukraine is a great inspiration to the free world.
See his entire opening statement here.
See his questioning of witnesses here.
Witnesses at today’s hearing were:
- Dr. Michael Carpenter, Permanent Representative and Ambassador of the United States to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe;
- Oleksiy Goncharenko, Member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; Vice President of the Committee on Migration and Refugees, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; and
- Olga Áivazovska, Head of the Board Civil Network OPORA; Co-Founder, International Center for Ukrainian Victory.
