; Whereas Emir-Usein Kukus, a Crimean Tatar and vocal dissident of Russia’s oppression in Crimea, was arrested, beaten, interrogated, and illegally transported to Rostov-on-Don in the Russian Federation by the Federal Security Service (FSB) where he remains in Russian detainment; 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 vessels, including 24 Ukrainian crewmembers, that were exercising 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; Whereas the Ukrainian government states that Russia is holding at least 113 Ukrainian political prisoners in Russian territory and Russian-occupied Crimea in contravention 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 borders 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 Assurances, in exchange for Ukraine’s voluntary and peaceful willingness to relinquish its nuclear weapons