After the presentation of the resolution, it must then be approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee and then put to a vote in Congress, both at the House of Representatives and the Senate level, before becoming law.
While the "Ukraine Victory Resolution" faces an uncertain future in a Congress where enthusiasm for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is waning, one should not count out the potential for the resolution becoming law, especially given the track record of its sponsors. Wilson, Cohen and McCaul last collaborated on the "Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act", which was signed into law on May 9, 2022, by President Joe Biden. That law enhanced Biden’s authority to simplify bureaucratic barriers with regards to military equipment for Ukraine or other Eastern European countries affected by the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Since the start of Russia's Special Military Operation, the Helsinki Commission has worked closely with the Ukrainian government to craft legislation that supports Ukrainian goals and objectives when it comes to its conflict with Russia.
To call the Helsinki Commission a de facto adjunct of the Ukrainian government would not be an exaggeration. Indeed, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, was the person chosen to make the official announcement regarding the presentation of the "Ukraine Victory Resolution" to the House of Representatives.
The text of the draft resolution "affirms that it is the policy of the United States to see Ukraine victorious against the invasion and restored to its internationally recognized 1991 borders."
Wilson and Cohen both have stated that the territorial integrity of Ukraine must be preserved, meaning that the conflict in Ukraine could not be ended until the territories of Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Crimea are returned to Ukrainian sovereignty.
While the resolution introduced by Wilson and Cohen accurately reflects both current US policy objectives and Ukrainian government desires, it ignores two critical realities. First, it is Russia that is winning the conflict, not Ukraine, and as such any termination of the current conflict will reflect this hard truth.
Moreover, to tie both the US and Ukraine to unrealistic expectations creates obstacles to any possible negotiated end to the conflict, meaning that the conflict will drag on to its inevitable conclusion—a strategic Russian victory—in a manner which will only increase the human, material, and financial cost to Ukraine.
Indeed, as senior Russian officials such as former President Dmitri Medvedev have noted, if the crisis does not reach a negotiated end, Ukraine itself may cease to exist as a sovereign entity. The irony of a piece of US legislation purporting to defend Ukrainian sovereignty serving as the foundation of the death of Ukraine as a nation seems to have escaped the sponsors of the resolution.
But the resolution also lays the groundwork for the possibility—indeed, if the resolution accomplished its goal, probability—of a general nuclear war between the United States and Russia. Former Russian President Medvedev recently noted that, according to Russian policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons, such weapons "can be used in case of aggression against Russia with the use of other types of weapons that threaten the very existence of the state. This is, in essence, the use of nuclear weapons in response to such actions."
Any effort by Ukraine to recover its former territories which have been absorbed by Russia would, by definition, constitute a threat against the "very existence of the Russian State," to quote Medvedev. "If you have a weapon in your hands," Medvedev declared recently, referring to nuclear weapons, "and I, as a former president, know what it is, you must be prepared that your hand will not tremble in a certain situation to use it, no matter how monstrous and cruel it sounds."
"Therefore, all these stories that 'the Russians will never do it,' or vice versa, 'the Russians keep scaring us with the use of nuclear weapons,' are not worth a penny," Medvedev said.
This is something Russia's potential adversaries, including Congressmen Wilson, Cohen, and McCaul—and indeed every member of Congress who will be called upon to vote in support of the "Ukraine Victory Resolution" — should keep first and foremost in their mind.
A vote for the resolution is a vote for nuclear war with Russia. The resolution is a literal suicide pact with Ukraine. Hopefully the American people will wake up to this reality before it is too late, and let their representatives know that they chose life over death.
Ukraine has lost its NATO-driven conflict with Russia. There is no need for the entire world to die as a result.