•HRES 802 IH 
such as the Crimean Tatars, and arbitrary arrests and 
disappearances of journalists and civil society activists; 
Whereas international humanitarian law, including the Gene-
va Conventions, to which Russia is a signatory, requires 
Russia to respect and protect the religious freedom of the 
inhabitants of the territory it occupies and controls, or 
controls through organized nonstate armed groups it 
commands, and holds Russia responsible for violations of 
religious freedom in this territory; 
Whereas according to the Department of State’s Inter-
national Religious Freedom Reports, and other reporting, 
violations of religious freedom in the Crimea region of 
Ukraine since Russia invaded and occupied the territory 
have included abduction, detention and imprisonment, 
torture, forced psychiatric hospitalizations, fines, restric-
tions on missionary activities, confiscations of property, 
including churches and meeting halls, expulsions and ob-
structions to reentry, denying registration of religious 
groups, vandalism, fines, and banning peaceful religious 
groups, and targeted groups have included Muslim Cri-
mean Tatars, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formerly 
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patri-
archate, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Protes-
tant Christians, and Jehovah’s Witnesses; 
Whereas according to the Department of State’s Inter-
national Religious Freedom Reports, violations of reli-
gious freedom in the part of the Donbas region of 
Ukraine controlled by armed groups commanded by Rus-
sia have included detention and imprisonment, torture, 
confiscation of property, including churches and meeting 
halls, physical assaults and threats of violence, van-
dalism, fines, restrictions on missionary activities, reli-
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•HRES 802 IH 
gious services, ceremonies, gatherings, and literature, and 
banning of peaceful religious groups, and targeted groups 
have included the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formerly 
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate, the 
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Protestant Christians, 
and Jehovah’s Witnesses; 
Whereas Emir-Usein Kukus, a Crimean Tatar and vocal dis-
sident of Russia’s oppression in Crimea, was arrested, 
beaten, interrogated, and illegally transported to Rostov- 
on-Don in the Russian Federation by the Federal Secu-
rity Service (FSB) where he remains in Russian detain-
ment; 
Whereas Russia seeks to undermine democratic institutions 
in Ukraine and globally through hybrid means, including 
conventional warfare, cyberattacks, weaponizing energy, 
election intervention, disinformation campaigns, and 
paramilitary operations; 
Whereas Russia seeks to use the Nord Stream II and Turk 
Stream natural gas pipelines to bypass Ukrainian transit 
routes and weaken that nation’s energy security and 
economy; 
Whereas the Russian Federal Security Service Border Service 
illegally fired upon and captured 3 Ukrainian Navy ves-
sels, including 24 Ukrainian crewmembers, that were ex-
ercising Ukraine’s right to navigation through the Kerch 
Strait on the way to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol in 
November 2018; 
Whereas this naval aggression is part of Russia’s strategy of 
‘‘creeping annexation’’, to slowly chip away at Ukraine’s 
sovereignty; 
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•HRES 802 IH 
Whereas the Ukrainian government states that Russia is 
holding at least 113 Ukrainian political prisoners in Rus-
sian territory and Russian-occupied Crimea in contraven-
tion of international law; 
Whereas it is estimated that more than 100 other prisoners 
are being held in the Russia-controlled regions of eastern 
Ukraine; 
Whereas Russia, together with the United States and the 
United Kingdom, affirmed its commitment ‘‘to respect 
the independence and sovereignty and the existing bor-
ders of Ukraine’’, as well as the ‘‘obligation to refrain 
from the threat or use of force’’ against Ukraine in the 
December 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security As-
surances, in exchange for Ukraine’s voluntary and peace-
ful willingness to relinquish its nuclear weapons; 
Whereas, since 2014, the United States Government has im-
posed sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation 
of Crimea, invasion of eastern Ukraine, and other malign 
activities in Ukraine; 
Whereas Congress passed the Countering America’s Adver-
saries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 with overwhelming 
bipartisan support, which codified and strengthened these 
sanctions; 
Whereas Congress has provided close to $4 billion in critical 
security and development assistance to Ukraine to help 
that nation deter Russian aggression, strengthen demo-
cratic institutions, and to continue its euro-Atlantic tra-
jectory; 
Whereas United States servicemembers in cooperation with 
NATO forces provide critical training to Ukrainian 
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•HRES 802 IH 
ground force units at the Yavoriv Combat Training Cen-
ter; 
Whereas United States cooperation with Ukraine has yielded 
valuable lessons into the evolution of Russia’s hybrid war-
fare tactics thereby enhancing United States readiness; 
Whereas Ukraine held Presidential and parliamentary elec-
tions in 2019, which the international community lauded 
as free and fair; 
Whereas, since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine’s 
civil society has played a critical role in advancing demo-
cratic and rule of law reforms, sometimes paying with 
their lives, as was the case of Kateryna Handziuk, who 
died on November 4, 2018, of injuries sustained during 
a July 2018 acid attack; 
Whereas, in April 2019, Ukraine launched a special 
anticorruption court to counter Ukraine’s longstanding 
problems of corruption that is to be free from political in-
fluence; 
Whereas Ukraine’s central bank rightfully nationalized 
PrivatBank due to its previous owners’ rampant corrup-
tion and theft from the Ukrainian people; 
Whereas PrivatBank must remain independent from any oli-
garch influence, must not be returned to its previous 
ownership, and is a test case for Ukraine’s commitment 
to anticorruption reform efforts; 
Whereas, in January 2019, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Con-
stantinople 
recognized 
an 
autocephalous 
Orthodox 
Church of Ukraine, thereby officially granting it inde-
pendence from the Russian Orthodox Church; and 
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•HRES 802 IH 
Whereas it is the longstanding policy of the United States not 
to recognize territorial changes that are the result of ille-
gal use of force: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) reaffirms the commitment of the United 
States to support the democratically elected Govern-
ment of Ukraine and its people; 
(2) reaffirms the support of the United States 
for the integration of Ukraine with the North Atlan-
tic Treaty Organization and the European Union; 
(3) commends the Ukrainian people’s commit-
ment to liberty and critical progress made since the 
2014 Revolution of Dignity despite immense pres-
sure from Russian aggression and hybrid warfare 
tactics; 
(4) condemns Russia’s continued aggression in 
Ukraine including the illegal occupation of Crimea 
and eastern Ukraine; 
(5) calls for Russia to immediately remove all 
personnel and equipment belonging to its security or 
armed forces and proxies from the sovereign terri-
tory of Ukraine, and for Ukraine to regain control 
of its border with Russia, including sections now 
held by separatist forces; 
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•HRES 802 IH 
(6) calls for the immediate release of Ukrainian 
human rights defenders and dissidents illegally ar-
rested by Russian forces and their proxies; 
(7) condemns any form of religious persecution 
and violation of religious freedoms by Russia or 
armed groups commanded by Russia in the illegally 
occupied Donbas and Crimea regions of Ukraine; 
(8) reaffirms opposition to the Nord Stream II 
natural gas pipeline, which is political in nature, and 
calls for enactment of sanctions with respect to these 
pipelines; 
(9) expresses support for increased United 
States security and capacity-building assistance to 
Ukraine, and an increase in funds for such assist-
ance; 
(10) urges the United States to continue to 
strengthen critical efforts to enhance Ukrainian ca-
pacity to defend itself, including via enhanced cyber 
cooperation, military training and provision of mili-
tary equipment, countering disinformation, assist-
ance to support psychosocial care and job integra-
tion for Ukrainian veterans, supporting market ac-
cess for Ukrainian rural women, and other critical 
programs; 
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•HRES 802 IH 
(11) supports the Ukrainian government in its 
efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution to the inter-
national armed conflict in eastern Ukraine caused by 
Russia’s ongoing military aggression and illegal oc-
cupation, through the establishment of a full 
ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian and Russia-backed 
illegal military forces, and the fulfillment of other 
elements of the Minsk Agreements and appointing a 
United States diplomat to play an active role in sup-
port of the negotiations and ensuring Ukraine’s se-
curity; 
(12) calls for Russia to release all Ukrainians 
detained by Russian forces or their proxies for their 
activities on sovereign Ukrainian territory; 
(13) calls on the United States Government, 
United States allies in Europe, the United Nations, 
the Organization for Security and Co-operation in 
Europe, and international partners to continue to 
pressure Russia to uphold its international obliga-
tions; and 
(14) continues to oppose Russian threats to the 
energy security of United States allies in Europe 
and encourages the Government of the United 
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•HRES 802 IH 
States to further support the diversification of en-
ergy supplies to Europe. 
Æ 
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