• 3 days ago
During remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) spoke about Russia's abduction of over 20,000 Ukrainian children during their invasion.

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Transcript
00:00I recognize the senator from Iowa.
00:02On this day in 1949, the Russian Soviet regime, occupying the Baltic countries,
00:13rounded up 95,000 people, mostly women and children, and sent them to Siberia.
00:24During Stalin's rule, more than 220,000 innocent people were deported to cold Siberia.
00:37This doesn't even include political prisoners sent to the Gulag camps.
00:45This day is observed by those Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
00:55by lighting candles in memory of these deportees.
01:01The reasons the Soviets did this is pretty simple.
01:06They wanted to crush civil society in newly occupied areas because they took over the Baltic countries in 1940.
01:18The ultimate goal was to eliminate Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian national identity entirely,
01:30replacing it with, of course, a Soviet Russian identity.
01:35The Soviets did not succeed in this effort.
01:41Now, you may not remember this from history,
01:46but the United States never recognized the illegal Soviet occupation of these three Baltic states.
01:58Now, the people of those three countries kept flame of freedom alive
02:04by quietly telling their children the truth about how their countries were once free and independent.
02:14Then, when the Soviet empire showed signs of weakness,
02:20their desire for freedom burst forth in what is called the Singing Revolution.
02:28It got the name because of the use of national songs banned by the Soviet,
02:37and this, by singing it, it was their means of protest.
02:43Fifty years of brutal Soviet occupation could not extinguish the flames of freedom,
02:52and all Baltic countries are again free and prosperous.
02:59These three countries happen to be among the most pro-American allies.
03:06I wonder if we learn from freedom
03:09because we know that when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022,
03:18he has since kidnapped about 20,000 young people from Ukraine,
03:27taken them to Russia, to Russia-fiam, I guess you'd say,
03:35and we don't hear enough of that.
03:39We ought to be reminded of what the Soviets did after World War II,
03:49and it seems like the world has not learned a lesson
03:55or Putin wouldn't get away with his kidnapping of 20 children to take them to Russia from Ukraine.
04:02We should not allow this to consider,
04:05and the United States of America ought to be very cautious
04:10in any dealings with an international war criminal as Putin has been so condemned by.
04:22I yield the forum and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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