Chairman Menendez Introduces Ukraine Legislation

Menendez: “Ukraine is confronting a menacing threat challenging its very existence and in their hour of need, we firmly stand with the Ukrainian people to choose their own destiny without Russian interference.”

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offered legislation today providing authority for Ukrainian loan guarantees and to assist in the country’s stabilization and recovery, including sanctions on individuals responsible for human rights abuses and persons violating the sovereign territorial integrity of Ukraine.

“Ukraine is confronting a menacing threat challenging its very existence and in their hour of need, we firmly stand with the Ukrainian people to choose their own destiny without Russian interference,” Menendez said. “President Putin has miscalculated by playing a game of Russian roulette with the international community, but we refuse to blink, and will never accept this violation of international law.”

The Support for the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy, and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act of 2014 includes the following components:

• It provides for loan guarantees for Ukraine, consistent with the $1 billion announced by the administration in recent days, and mirrors the just-passed House legislation.

• It directs the Obama administration to assist the Ukrainian government to identify, secure and recover assets linked to acts of corruption by Viktor Yanukovych, members of his family, or other former or current Ukrainian government officials.

• It authorizes $50 million for democracy, governance and civil society assistance and $100 million for enhanced security cooperation for Ukraine and other states in Central and Eastern Europe.

• It provides for additional sanctions, complementing the president's recent executive order, against Ukrainians and Russians alike responsible for violence and serious human rights abuses against anti-government protesters and those responsible for undermining the peace, security, stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine, including through acts of economic extortion.

• It imposes sanctions on Russian officials or their associates complicit in or responsible for significant corruption in Ukraine to include asset freezes and visa revocations.

• It includes needed reforms to the United States' participation in the International Monetary Fund, which would allow the United States to leverage significant support from the IMF for Ukraine today and for similar unforeseen crises in the future.

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