Trump’s Team, From Quarters High and Low, Telegraphs Kyiv That a Turn of the Spigot Is Nigh

Cold winds are blowing in Ukraine, and it isn’t even winter yet. While President Biden “remains committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and Jan. 20,” as Secretary of State Blinken said onThursday, there will likely be dramatic changes to the disbursement of dollars to Ukraine from the day President-elect Trump is sworn.Speaking at a gala for the America First Policy Institute at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, Mr. Trump said that “Russia and Ukraine’s gotta stop.”Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, tells the Sun that “The American people re-elected President Trump because they trust him to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world. When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary action to do just that.” Ms. Leavitt has previously said that the new president’s priorities “include, on Day One, bringing Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table to end this war.” The incoming Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has stated that “They don’t admit it publicly, but if you ask the Biden Administration, they will tell you we are funding a stalemate.”America has given more than $174 billion dollars to Ukraine to date, while even in loans to Kyiv, Washington has given as much money as all the European allies combined. The scope of the commitment to financial support for Ukraine is narrowing every day. There are various indications of such, some borderline crass, others more subtle. This week, Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik, appeared to walk back some of her previous support for the embattled country Ukraine. In 2022, Ms. Stefanik, from her perch in the Congressional leadership, called on NATO to accept Ukraine as a member and also supported providing large-scale military aid to Kyiv. Following being tapped for the new position, however, she appears to have taken a more carefully calibrated stance.When asked by CNN if she still supports NATO membership for Ukraine, her spokesperson, Ali Black, declined to give a specific answer. “Chairwoman Stefanik fully supports President Trump’s peace through strength policy agenda and will follow his lead as Commander in Chief on best practices to end the war in Ukraine,” Ms. Black said.If that sounds like less than full-throttled support for what is essentially the Biden administration’s support for military aid “as long as it takes” tack, it doesn’t come out of the blue. This week Donald Trump Jr. taunted President Zelensky on social media about “losing his allowance” — a description that if inelegant mirrors his father’s own prior statement calling Mr. Zelensky “the greatest salesman on Earth.” Another individual who has no official role but is believed to have some influence on the president-elect is former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. This week he told an Italian newspaper that “We in the MAGA movement are adamant [that] we want to cut 100 percent of the funds for Ukraine in the House.”“Trump will say he wants peace in Ukraine — I don’t speak for him, but it’s clear that he wants to put an end to this semi-obsession with pushing NATO almost into Russian territory,” he stated, adding, “Now that Trump is back, the MAGA movement is stronger than ever and we will take over the national security and foreign policy apparatus.” The powerful “America First” sentiment of the MAGA movement is a populist force that now reverberates to the top of the Washington establishment. President-elect Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, stated on social media in February 2022 that if President Biden had taken into account “Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO” then “war and suffering” might have been averted.That prompted Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to tell CNN on Thursday, “Do you really want her to have all the secrets of the United States and our defense intelligence agencies when she has so clearly been in Putin’s pocket?”In the meantime, in Ukraine itself the “stalemate” to which Senator Rubio referred is getting messier by the day. Russia is increasingly hitting the Kharkiv region with destructive glide bombs and drones while its troops are advancing in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia’s Kursk border region to help beat back Ukrainian forces there, and nobody in the West is doing much about it — at least, not publicly.If one of the Biden administration’s aims in dispatching as much aid to Ukraine as possible before January 20 is to help restrain Russian forces and retain a strong hand in any potential peace negotiations, Moscow is not waiting for a kumbaya moment. Russia attacked Kyiv with missiles and drones for the first time in 73 days on Wednesday. Ukraine is also straining to hold back a monthslong Russian onslaught in the eastern Donetsk region.

Trump’s Team, From Quarters High and Low, Telegraphs Kyiv That a Turn of the Spigot Is Nigh

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