As Ukraine war enters second year, can US support last?

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden dramatically emphasised US backing for Ukraine this week with a trip to the wartorn country, but back home public support for sending weapons to Ukraine is softening as the conflict enters its second year with no end in sight.

Support among Americans for providing military aid to Ukraine has fallen to 58 per cent, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos survey of more than 4,000 Americans, conducted from Feb 6 to Feb 13, a drop from the 73 per cent who said they backed the transfer of weapons in an April 2022 poll.

Signs of waning enthusiasm come at a difficult juncture in US politics that may restrict Biden’s ability to deliver fully on his promise of unwavering US support for as long as Russian troops remain on Ukrainian soil.

Republicans are in a standoff with the White House on raising the debt ceiling – which caps how much money the United States can borrow. They are demanding steep spending cuts to tame the deficit at a time when the United States is pumping billions of dollars in military and other aid into Ukraine. A number of Republican lawmakers allied to former President Donald Trump have called for restrictions on the aid.

The aid could become a political football in the 2024 presidential campaign, which is already under way. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination, this week criticized what he called Biden’s “blank check” policy on Ukraine.

For now, Republican leaders in Congress, who fiercely oppose Biden on most issues, support aid for Ukraine’s defense, even calling for Washington to send more powerful weapons, more quickly. The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, said on a visit to Kyiv on Tuesday that momentum in Washington was shifting toward sending long-range missiles and fighter jets to Ukraine.

But the party is fractured on Ukraine. Right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives put forward a so-called Ukraine Fatigue resolution that proposed cutting off aid earlier this month, but it lacks enough support to endanger aid in the near term.

Just 11 Republican lawmakers out of 222 in the House signed on to the resolution. Not many, but Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center in Washington, warned it could be a mistake to dismiss them.

“The pull that small group has on the party is still yet to be seen, but I think it’s something that’s concerning for all of us,” Rizzo said.

Congress has approved each new tranche of funding the Biden administration has requested since the war began, with aid and military assistance worth US$113 billion pledged to Ukraine and allied nations so far.