Six Months Into Russian War, Polls Point to Waning American Support for Ukraine

Just days before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, J.D. Vance, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio, posted a video to Twitter in which he said, “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” adding that he was more concerned about problems in his community. As callous as that comment may strike some, it is a view apparently shared by many American voters as the war in Europe has reached the six-month mark. According to a Gallup poll undertaken in July, the “situation with Russia” is the most important issue for less than 1 percent of voters. By contrast, the poll found that “inflation” and “government/leadership” were the top concerns for 17 percent of Americans surveyed. A separate, new Morning Consult tracking poll underscores Americans’ flagging interest in Ukraine, despite the Biden administration having supplied the embattled country with more than $10 billion in military and security assistance. According to that poll, only 41 percent of voters say the American government is responsible for protecting Ukraine from Russian aggression. The poll also found that a record low share of voters, 21 percent, say the U.S. is not doing enough to halt the Russian invasion and that Republicans (29 percent) remain about twice as likely as Democrats (15 percent) to say “too much” is being done.The Morning Consult poll also found that support for cutting business ties with Russia is “softening” — to wit, “at 31 percent, a preference for companies to permanently cut business ties in Russia is at its lowest since early April, and down seven percentage points from a peak in June.” However, most Americans remain concerned about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and also support resettling Ukrainian refugees, the polling found.It is on the whole a mixed picture: Officially, Washington stands behind Ukraine 100 percent and Secretary Blinken has insisted that Washington will provision Ukraine with the assistance it needs for “as long as it takes.”Washington’s dispatch of advanced HIMARS rocket systems to Kyiv has been instrumental in Ukraine’s recent gains in various battlefield settings, but so far it is still a no-go on MGM-140 tactical missiles, which with their 180-mile range outgun the HIMARS, at least in terms of strike capability. A senior Pentagon official told London’s Telegraph: “Right now we see that the Ukrainians are able to successfully target Russian key capabilities, key command-and-control nodes, logistic nodes, and they’re doing that with the existing GMLRS, with the existing HIMARS.”The newspaper also reports today that “Republican leaders are still determined to back Ukraine but an insurgent wing in the party, including some members of Congress endorsed by Donald Trump, want to see more money spent securing the southern border instead.” That “insurgent wing” includes the likes of Mr. Vance and a former adviser to President Trump, Steve Cortes, who wrote in Newsweek this month that the war in Ukraine “involves no vital U.S. national interest” and that “Biden’s intervention harms America and worsens the plight of the Ukrainian people, who have become pawns in a battle of Black Sea oligarchs.” Officials have said the Biden administration is expected to announce an additional roughly $3 billion in aid to train and equip Ukrainian forces to fight for years to come, the AP reported on Wednesday. This is excellent news for Ukraine, whose national survival is at stake.NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said: “Winter is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logistics.” To what extent American voters will prioritize the provision of those logistics over an indeterminate length of time remains to be seen.

Six Months Into Russian War, Polls Point to Waning American Support for Ukraine

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