Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s multiday trip to Washington, D.C., last week, during which he held meetings on Capitol Hill, the White House, and the Defense Department, wasn’t as disastrous as some headlines suggest. Zelensky left the Beltway with another U.S. security assistance package in his back pocket, a $325 million tranche that included more air defense systems and artillery rounds. He was able to strut around with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the two most powerful senators in the chamber. More importantly for Zelensky’s purposes, Biden agreed to transfer ATACMS long-range missiles to the Ukrainian army after opposing it for months.
But there’s no sugarcoating it: the longer the war trudges on, the more likely U.S. lawmakers will be wary of financing Ukraine’s war effort. We already see a decline in public support for sending the Ukrainian army hundreds of millions of dollars worth of defense aid every few weeks. In Washington, the reticence is reflected most clearly among House Republicans, one-third of whom voted for an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would have removed all military aid to Kyiv (the amendment failed). A CBS News poll released on Sept. 10 found 61% of Republicans surveyed are against continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine, up 10 points over the last seven months.
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