If Republicans win the House, US aid to Ukraine could be in danger.
Several GOP lawmakers and candidates have said they would like to cut off aid to Ukraine.
SometimesUkraine has been hijacked in domestic politics. Zelenskyy advisor told Insider that now and then that occurs.
In a phone call with Ukraine's president this month, US President Joe Biden pledged continued solidarity with the country as it battles Russia.
If the GOP takes control of the House of Representatives, that level of support could be in jeopardy.
There have been warning signs for a while.
10 House Republicans voted against a bill that would have made it easier for the Biden administration to lend military equipment to Ukraine. There were 57 House Republicans who voted against the aid package. The chambers passed both measures.
"I think people are going to be sitting in a recession and they're not going to write a blank check to Ukraine," Kevin McCarthy, who's favored to become House Speaker if the GOP retakes the chamber, said recently. They will not do it.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has delivered a huge blow to the prestige of the Russian military.
With the help of Western aid and at a massive personal cost, Ukrainian forces prevented Russia from seizing Kyiv in the early days of the war and have since launched a counteroffensive that has shown major signs of success.
Billions of dollars the US has provided to Kyiv is too costly and not worth the risk of sparking a larger conflict with Russia, according to a far-right group of the GOP. The shift began with Donald Trump and has continued as conservative pundits have sided with Russia.
The GOP's gradual shift away from Ukraine and toward Russia has been going on for a long time.
In addition to peddling the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election, Trump was also impeached for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in vital aid to the war-torn country.
Zelenskyy, who won the election in a landslide, was pressured by Trump and his allies to investigate the Bidens ahead of the 2020 election.
According to foreign policy experts, Trump's actions were a threat to the US's national security and bipartisan support forUkraine. In the end, only one Senate Republican, Romney, voted to convict the former president over his actions.
Trump praised Putin's justifications for invading as "genius" and "smart" in the years after. The former president went out of his way to praise the Russian leader in order to avoid criticism of Putin.
It's not just the top of the GOP that hasility toward Ukraine. Many prominent right-wing politicians and media figures have moved in lockstep with the Kremlin, creating a feedback loop where each side reuses the other's propaganda.
Tucker Carlson is a far-right host on Fox News, and he has repeatedly echoed a conspiracy theory that originated in Moscow. The segments that echoed Kremlin talking points appeared on Russian state tv.
Mykola Kniazhytskyi, a member of Ukraine's parliament, said that Fox News commentators promote isolationist positions that look like support for Russia.
The GOP's opposition to aid to Ukraine is tied to Trump's "America First" policy. When it came to NATO and European security, Trump was critical of US spending.
Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Republican and she has criticized US assistance to Ukraine.
It's a remarkable shift for the Republican Party, which for years has advocated a hard line on foreign policy. The party has become more isolationist under Trump, and its opposition to helping Ukraine is the clearest sign of that.
Biden has made the case that the fight between democracy and autocracy is part of the reason why the US supports Ukraine. A growing number of Republicans say that aid to Kyiv shouldn't be prioritized in Washington because of concerns over inflation and a possible recession.
"When people are seeing a 13% increase in grocery prices; energy, utility bills doubling; and if you're a border community and you're being overrun by migrants and Fentanyl, Ukraine is the furthest thing from your mind," Republican Rep.
According to forecaster FiveThirtyEight, the Democrats' chances of retaining the Senate have gone down in the last few weeks due to polling in key contests in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, and North Carolina.
In Ohio, a GOP Senate candidate said in September that he would vote against sending more aid to Ukraine. We can't fund a long-term military conflict that has diminishing returns for our country.
Some people in Kyiv think that US support to Ukraine will continue even if Congress is controlled by one of the two parties.
SometimesUkraine has been hijacked in domestic politics. Tymofiy Mylovanov is an advisor to Zelenskyy who served as Ukraine's economic minister. We try to avoid this. We don't want to be involved in this.
The amount of assistance Ukraine needs is a small fraction of the US GDP. It doesn't mean anything in the budget. It's not a lot of money.
The US has given over 20 billion dollars in security assistance to Ukraine. Since the beginning of the year, the Biden administration has sent $18.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
The US has given the most assistance to any country so far.
The US sent weapons that blunted Russia's previous advantages in armored vehicles and weaponry. If the US stopped giving aid to Kyiv, it would make it harder for the Ukrainians to oust Russian columns.
During a recent rally, Trump called for a negotiated settlement to the war. "If we don't demand the immediate negotiation of a peaceful end to the war in Ukranian, we will end up in World War III," he said at the time.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has shown little interest in negotiating, as evidenced by his recent actions. The Russian leader called up hundreds of thousands of men and imposed martial law in parts of the country that are not part of Russia.
Missiles and drones have been launched against civilian areas by Russia.
The president of the Kyiv School of Economics, a former economic minister, said that the Ukrainian people won't surrender.
People think that the decisions about what happens in Kyiv are made in Moscow or Washington. It is decided in Ukraine.
It's up to the US if they want to be at the table.
Business Insider has an article on it.
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