Ukraine concerned about US midterm elections – Politico

There is growing concern about what Tuesday’s US midterm elections might mean for Ukraine and the United States’ support for the country, amid concerns that a surge in Republicans could erode US support for KEV.

Ukrainian officials and lawmakers are examining a file Polls and analyze the comments of their peers.

“We hope for our own sake that we do not become a victim of the partisan debate that is now unfolding in the United States,” Ivana Klimbusch-Tsintsadze, a former Ukrainian deputy prime minister and opposition lawmaker, told Politico. “This is the fear, because we are very dangerously dependent not only on American support, but also on American leadership in terms of continuing the joint efforts of other countries.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the likely next speaker if the Republicans win, said last month that there would be no “blank check” for Ukraine if the House returned to Republican control. The Biden administration has tried to allay concerns about the government’s commitment to support Ukraine in its war against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, but populist Republican sentiment in Congress is urging less support for Kiev and more attention to the United States’ domestic problems.

“I’m worried about Trump’s wing in the Republican Party,” said Mia Willard, a Ukrainian-American who lives and works in Kyiv. “I recently read about Representative Marjorie Taylor Green’s promise that”Not another penny He will go to Ukraine “if the Republicans regain control of Congress.”

According to the latest Republican poll data, favorite to take over the Presidency of the House and possibly the Senate in a vote on Tuesday.

Willard said: “I really hope that regardless of the election results, there will be a sustained bipartisan consensus of support for Ukraine amid Russia’s genocide against the Ukrainian people, which I can only describe as genocide after witnessing firsthand the Russian war crimes. In the Ukrainian capital, Willard, a researcher at the International Center for Policy Studies, said:

Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has expressed confidence that US military and financial support for his country will continue after the midterm elections. “I don’t see a lot of people among the Republicans calling for aid to be cut,” he told Politico. At the same time, Klimkin acknowledged that the procedure for congressional consideration of aid to Ukraine may become more complicated.

Klimkin said he believes the US position on Ukraine is “crucial” for Washington in the post-Ukrainian conflict — “not only with respect to Russia, but also about how China will view the United States.”

As for Ukraine, Klimkin said the “real danger” is the debate in Washington on both sides of the aisle about the fact that “the United States is giving far more than all of Europe” to Kyiv’s war effort.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the United States has raised its total commitments in military, financial and humanitarian aid to more than 52 billion euros, while the countries and institutions of the European Union combined have reached just over 29 billion euros.

The United States is now committed to nearly twice as much as all the countries and institutions of the European Union combined. This is a poor proposition for major European countries, especially since many of their pledges arrive in Ukraine with long delays, said Christoph Trebisch, head of the team that compiles the Ukraine support tracker at the Kiel Institute.

Europe’s position

Klimbusch-Tsintsadze said that if the Republicans win Tuesday’s vote, the concern is also that without US leadership, Ukraine will slip on Europe’s political agenda as well, depriving Ukraine of the support the country needs to “victory over the Russian beast.” .

If the worst happens, and US support weakens after the midterms, Klympush-Tsintsadze said she has some hopes that Europe will hold steady. She said she had found in Europe “more sobriety in assessing what Russia is and what it can do, and I hope there will be enough voices there in Europe as well, to ensure that support is not weakened.”

Others are less sanguine about how brave and reliable Europeans would be without Washington’s provocation. Several officials and lawmakers have pointed to the Balkan wars of the 1990s and how the Clinton administration backed off, arguing that the Europeans should only take the lead and intervene diplomatically and militarily later.

said Iulia Osmolovska, Chair of the Center for Transatlantic Dialogue and Senior Fellow at GLOBSEC, a global think tank based in Bratislava.

This may affect the current determination of the US political establishment to continue to support Ukraine, primarily militarily. Especially given the voices of some Republicans demanding a freeze on support for Ukraine.

But Osmolovska remains optimistic, noting that “Ukraine has enjoyed bipartisan support in the war with Russia since the early days of the invasion in February of this year.” It also believes that President Joe Biden will have some wiggle room to act more independently when it comes to military assistance to Ukraine without seeking approval from Congress thanks to legislation already on the books.

But she does not discount the “risk of some fatigue” from allies, arguing that Ukraine needs to redouble diplomatic efforts to prevent this from happening. What should be emphasized, she said, is that “our Western partners only benefit from enabling Ukraine to defeat Russia as quickly as possible” — because a protracted conflict is in no one’s interest.

“There is a feeling in the air that we are winning the war, even though it is not over yet,” said Gleb Dovigysh, a software engineer in Kyiv.

“If the flow of money and equipment decreases, it will not mean our defeat, but it will mean a much longer war with much greater casualties. And since many other allies look to the United States in their decisions to support us, if the United States reduces the amount of their assistance, it is likely to follow suit. Other countries such as Germany, France and Italy followed suit.”

“It is clear that opinions about how to end the Russian war on Ukraine are being used in internal political competition within the United States,” says Yaroslav Azniuk, president and co-founder of Petcube, a tech company that develops smart devices for pets.

He worries about influencing the American political opinion also of US-based businessmen and investors, citing David Sachs, Elon Musk and Shamath Palihapitiya, among others. “They publicly shared related views, saying that Ukraine should cede Crimea to Russia, or that the United States should stop supporting Ukraine to avoid a global nuclear war.”

Azniuk added: “I understand, nuclear weapons are scary. But what will happen in the next five or ten years after Ukraine cedes any part of its territory or freezes the conflict. Such a scenario would signal to the whole world that nuclear terrorism is at work.”

Mikhailo Podolak, adviser to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that regardless of the results of the US midterm elections, Kyiv is “confident” that bipartisan support for Ukraine will remain in both houses of Congress. Both Republicans and Democrats expressed their solidarity with Ukraine, and this position will remain “a reflection of the will of the American people,” he said.

Podolyak told POLITICO that the Ukrainian side relies on US leadership on important issues related to defense assistance, in particular in expanding the capacity of the Ukrainian air defense system, financial support, strengthening sanctions against Moscow, and recognition of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

It’s not just about Ukraine, said Klimbusch-Tsintsadze, a former deputy prime minister.

“There are many things in the world that depend on this war,” she said. It is not only about restoring our territorial integrity. It is not just about our freedom and our chance in the future, our survival as a nation and our survival as a nation — it will have dire consequences for the geopolitics of the world,”