It was a dramatic moment for U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war.
Nancy Pelosi, one day after her surprise meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, told the press in Poland on Sunday: “America stands with Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine until victory is won.” For good measure, she added: “Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done.”
I’ve put those two phrases in italics because the House speaker used words the administration avoided for weeks when addressing Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine — notably “victory” and “win.” And even on the rare occasion when the win word was snuck in, the level of military aid didn’t match.
Coming so soon after President Joe Biden’s vital request to Congress for $33 billion in additional short- and long-term aid to Ukraine, those words now signify a deeper commitment. That terminology is welcome because it signifies that the Biden team finally recognizes Ukraine could win — if the right heavy weapons from the West arrive soon enough — and will back the country for the long haul.
Yet if Ukrainian “victory” is now the U.S. goal, Biden needs to clarify what a win would look like. He needs to better explain to Americans why such a win is vital for our country’s security — and for democracy worldwide.
On the surface, it looks as if Biden should have no problem with public opinion. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows a big majority of Americans back sanctions on Russia and aid to Ukraine, with 36% saying that the United States is giving the right amount of support and 37% saying that it is giving too little.
But there are burbling currents in this country, often on the far-right, that buy Putin’s message that he is merely defending Russia against Ukrainian Nazi aggression. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is even promoting a bizarre claim that Hitler was partly Jewish in order to justify the Kremlin’s obscene claim that Zelenskyy, a Jew, is really a Nazi drug addict.
Yet former President Donald Trump praised Putin’s “genius” at the beginning of the invasion.
Yet J.D. Vance, Trump’s choice for Republican Senate candidate in Ohio, tweeted in February: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.”
Yet cable news’ most popular talk show host, Tucker Carlson of Fox News, who has repeatedly dumped on Ukraine and Zelenskyy, claimed this week that U.S. support for Ukraine has nothing to do with helping Ukrainians. Instead, he said, that support represents Democratic efforts “to topple the Russian government” as “payback for the 2016 election.”
Carlson also pushed the Kremlin lie that the U.S. was making bioweapons in Ukraine. It’s no surprise that this Kremlin-hugger is regularly praised and replayed on state-controlled Russian media. Yet many Americans believe him, too.
Meantime, some respected theorists of geopolitics blame the war on NATO’s expansion eastward which, they argue, upset Putin. They insist that Washington should press Zelenskyy to make a compromise deal with Putin as soon as possible.
Given these counter currents and the fickleness of public opinion, one cannot take long-term U.S. public support for Ukraine for granted, especially as we approach the poisonous atmosphere of the 2022 midterms — let alone the 2024 presidential election.
Here, then, are the points that I believe Biden must make clear to Americans going forward:
• This war is about Russian aggression, full stop, and Putin’s imperial ambition to control and/or annex Ukraine, which he believes is part of historic Russia. It is not about NATO expansion. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, Ukrainian public opinion opposed joining NATO. Not now.
