Whereas the United States maintains bipartisan support to ensure national security and the defense of United States allies and partners; Whereas President Ronald Reagan stated ‘‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’’ in his 1984 State of the Union address, and affirmed the conviction with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985; Whereas, in January 2022, President Joseph R. Biden joined the leaders of the People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to reaffirm that ‘‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’’; Whereas the United States, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, committing ‘‘to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine’’ and ‘‘to refrain from the threat or use of force’’ against the country; Whereas the United States has a history of leadership in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, including its work with Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation to ensure Ukraine did not retain any nuclear weapons left on its territory when it became independent; Whereas the Russian Federation further illegally invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and has used veiled and blatant nuclear saber-rattling in service of its war of aggression against a sovereign state; Whereas the war has led to thousands of casualties, including over 10,000 civilians and more than 560 children killed, along with the displacement of over 6,400,000 Ukrainians and an enduring global food crisis; Whereas the Russian Federation’s illegal war against Ukraine represents the greatest threat to European security and freedom in a generation