More Americans Cooling on Aid to Ukraine, New Poll Finds, as Europe’s Autumn Chill Greets Capitol Hill

Call it a bout of autumn gloom or reflection of a growing weariness with problems perceived by many Americans as remote, but, despite ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine, support among the American public for the embattled country is slipping, a new poll shows. The finding dovetails with recent drama on Capitol Hill that saw Congress pass continuing legislation to keep Washington running while omitting fresh funding for Ukraine, as Europe wrestles with a tide of illegal migrants that has reached crisis proportions and is diverting attention from the war.The new poll results, published Thursday by Reuters/Ipsos, show that 41 percent of respondents say they agree that America should continue providing weapons to Ukraine. That is down from 65 percent of respondents who, in a survey taken in June, said the weapons flow should continue. Democratic support dropped to 52 percent in October from 81 percent in June, while Republican support fell to 35 percent from 56 percent over the same period. The two-day poll concluded on October 4, just a day after Congressman Kevin McCarthy was ousted as House speaker. While the genesis of that congressional earthquake is complicated, the issue of American funding for Ukraine played a role, if only in the background. Although it was not clear if the timing of the poll was linked to this week’s dramatic events on Capitol Hill, its results underscore a broader shift in public sentiment with respect to Ukraine and could in some way color ongoing discussions among congressional leaders about the Biden administration’s request for an additional $24 billion in Ukraine funding. Of that sum, $17 billion is designated for defense assistance.Senator Paul told the Sun this week that it could now be “very difficult politically” for anyone to make a federal case, as it were, for reinvigorated funding of Ukraine, though the junior senator of Kentucky also suggested there is a “likelihood” that a package would come through as part of an end-of-the-year omnibus. Compounding Kyiv’s worries are fissures in Europe’s posture in respect of support for Ukraine. Overall the picture is bright. On Monday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said at a press briefing with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, that he had proposed to Ukraine a new “bilateral envelope” valued at more than $5 billion. Financial support from most European countries, including Britain and Germany, remains robust, but the picture in Eastern Europe is murkier.The most striking case is Poland, whose prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, stated last month that “we no longer transfer weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming Poland.” As Polish elections loom later this month, Warsaw’s attention has veered to more domestic matters. Lest anyone think that Poland’s only beef with Ukraine is over trade issues, not so: According to some reports, Warsaw will begin phasing out social welfare benefits for Ukrainian refugees after the start of the new year.Furthermore, Mr. Morawiecki now is openly feuding with the EU over the pan-European migrant crisis, and said this week that on the issue of illegal immigration the Polish government “will never agree to the demands of Berlin and Brussels.” He even cited Italy, saying that “we do not want another Lampedusa in Poland.”Slovakia, in the meantime, is another new chink in Ukraine’s armor, even though the small country didn’t have that much to give in the first place. That hasn’t stopped the current president, Zuzana Čaputová, from moving to prevent the interim technocratic interim government from sending a shipment of weapons to Ukraine at a time when the incoming prime minister, Robert Fico, who promised to send not “one more bullet,” is trying to form a government.That decision, unsurprisingly, did not go down well with Ukraine, where officials pointed out that this could have been one of the last chances for Slovakia to send arms to Ukraine before the new government was formed. According to a Slovak survey, more than half of Slovaks think that Ukraine is being helped “too much” and that aid should be temporary, while more than 55 percent of Slovaks also believe that “arms deliveries only prolong the war.”In an ironic twist, it might be Russia itself that ends up turning the dial back to more favorable views across the board on aid to Ukraine. Each new strike on civilian targets in the country keeps the war in the headlines and belies President Putin’s pretensions to be benignly readjusting the international order.A tragic case in point is the Russian rocket strike that on Thursday reduced to rubble a village cafe and store in northeastern Ukraine. The strike, which killed at least 51 civilians, in one of the deadliest attacks in the war in months.In the course of a regular White House press briefing on Thursday, the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said, “Let’s stop and think about what we’re seeing … innocent people who were killed by a Russian airstrike while they were shopping for food at a supermarket.” This, she added, “is what the president keeps talking about over and over again: We have to be continuing to support the people of Ukraine, because this is the horrifying nature that they live in every day.”

More Americans Cooling on Aid to Ukraine, New Poll Finds, as Europe’s Autumn Chill Greets Capitol Hill

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