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A delegation of top European foreign ministers was in Kyiv on Monday in a show of solidarity with an embattled government. E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell billed their arrival in the Ukrainian capital as part of a “historic meeting” with a candidate for membership of the European Union. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declared that the future of Ukraine would be within the bloc and hailed the continent’s “community of freedom, which will stretch from Lisbon to Luhansk.”
Ukraine’s present is far less rosy, with its province in Luhansk among the territories under Russian control and occupation. A slow going Ukrainian counteroffensive, outfitted by Western governments, is battering against Russian fortifications across a vast front line spanning the country’s south and east. Casualties are mounting, while concerns grow over the flow of vital foreign aid that Ukraine needs to sustain its resistance to Russia’s invasion.
While in Kyiv, Europe’s top diplomats were all too aware of the wrangling and bickering in Washington. A U.S. government shutdown was temporarily averted after a deal thrashed out between Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the weekend stripped out a new tranche of funding for Ukraine’s war effort. The move reflected genuine mounting opposition within a wing of the Republican caucus to what critics describe as a “blank check” policy in support of Kyiv.
A majority of members of Congress support funding Ukraine, but opinion polling shows more skepticism among the American public. A vocal minority of GOP lawmakers are calling for the aid spigot to be turned off. The Biden administration has requested a further $13 billion in new military aid and $8.5 billion in economic, security and humanitarian assistance; the United States has already directed more than $60 billion to Ukraine, including more than $40 billion in direct military assistance, since the Russian invasion began last year.
A look at the amount of U.S. spending powering Ukraine’s defense
On Sunday, President Biden urged Congress to stop “playing games” with Ukraine’s aid requests. “We’re going to get it done,” he said, referring to fresh legislation authorizing aid. “I can’t believe those who voted for supporting Ukraine — overwhelming majority in the House and Senate, Democrat and Republican — will for pure political reasons let more people die needlessly in Ukraine.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and top European Union diplomat Josep Borrell expressed confidence Oct. 2 that the U.S. Congress would support Kyiv. (Video: Reuters)
But with next year’s U.S. elections looming, the politics of the moment will only intensify on both sides of the pond. Scratch beneath the surface in Europe, too, and you can find doubts about indefinite commitments to Ukraine. Elections this weekend in Slovakia saw the victory of the faction led by populist Robert Fico, who, like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, wants to see an immediate cessation of hostilities that may force Kyiv into territorial concessions to Russia.
The European officials in Kyiv and their Ukrainian counterparts wanted to show the world — and Russia, in particular — that their unity was intact. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “greatest expectation is precisely that the West and the world will tire of standing on the side of Ukraine in this war. Russia is directing huge resources to this,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday. “We should not play along with them.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, back in Kyiv after an international sojourn that saw him beseech partners at the United Nations in New York and at the White House, said his nation would fight Russia “for as long as it takes” — no matter the political rumblings elsewhere. “Helping Ukraine is helping the whole world. If Ukraine falls, Russia will start a big war,” he said, echoing a now common refrain from Ukraine and its backers. “And not only on the territory of our state.”
Yet it increasingly seems Zelensky and his allies are fighting an uphill diplomatic battle. A tussle over Ukrainian grain exports has rankled relations with Poland, one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters. Western policymakers are worried about Ukraine’s ongoing struggles with curbing corruption, an issue that hangs over the new installments of billions of dollars in aid to Kyiv, as well as future talks over accession into NATO and the European Union. Tech oligarch Elon Musk and other influential voices among the West’s far right publicly mock Ukraine’s repeated requests for assistance.
Poland threatens to stop sending arms to Ukraine in fight over grain
Ukrainian officials have also made little headway in winning any meaningful support from the countries of the so-called “Global South,” which Zelensky attempted to address at the U.N. General Assembly last month. His efforts, concluded Mykhailo Minakov, a senior adviser at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute think tank, were not “enough to stop deepening certain cracks in the pro-Ukrainian alliance” in the West. “Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the sovereignty of Ukraine partially depends on Western and wider international support. The changing international environment demonstrates that there are growing challenges for this support,” he added.
Kyiv downplays lack of Ukraine aid in new U.S. spending bill
The White House insists Kyiv had little to fear about a lack of U.S. commitment. But the political winds blowing through Washington have alarmed onlookers elsewhere.
“This really puts a huge question mark over the future of U.S. support for Ukraine,” Michal Baranowski, managing director at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., told my colleagues this weekend as House Republicans axed funding for Ukraine. “That’s what I’m worried about, immediately.”
Ukraine’s boosters contend that U.S. aid to Kyiv decidedly favors American interests — spending money that fuels U.S. industry while also severely degrading the Russian war machine without any U.S. boots on the ground. “Congressmen are deciding to throw Ukraine under the bus while aid to Ukraine is probably the best-in-history return on investment of U.S. foreign policy,” Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine, told my colleagues.
Even if there is no sudden turn away from Kyiv by the West, analysts suggest support could steadily soften as the war drags on. “The main risk for Ukraine is less an abrupt political shift in the West than the slow unraveling of a carefully woven web of foreign assistance,” wrote Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage in Foreign Affairs. They advised that “political leaders in the United States and Europe should do what they can to entrench financial and military assistance to Ukraine in long-term budgetary cycles, making the aid more difficult for future officials to unwind.”
This weekend’s showdown in Washington looked bleak to many in Kyiv. “We are engaged in a battle of life and death with Russia, and every little bit of support is helping destroy Putin,” Sviatoslav Yurash, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told my colleagues. “This will give him a greater chance of killing more of my people and destroying more of my nation.”