After midterms, U.S. and European support for Ukraine endures.
European and Ukrainian officials arched wary eyebrows at the United States in the days leading up to the midterm elections. As polling pointed to a possible anti-incumbent “red wave” catapulting the Republicans back into power in Congress with a decisive majority, there were fears that ascendant U.S. right-wing nationalists marching in the shadow of former president Donald Trump may undermine the Biden administration’s plans for sustaining Ukraine’s resistance to the ongoing Russian invasion. Some Republican lawmakers and candidates warned that there would be no U.S. “blank check” for Kyiv. Others even argued that all funding must end.
The “red wave” did not happen. Vote counting continues and it seems the nation is muddling toward tiny margins in both the House and Senate. In Europe, the poor showing of candidates endorsed by Trump led to sighs of relief. Still, as Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of European Parliament, said in a statement, with 2024 now on the horizon, “there remains enough reason for the E.U. to prepare for further shifts in its relationship with the United States.
Stavros Lambrinidis, the E.U. ambassador in Washington, has a more confident view. In an interview the day after the elections, he told me he had “no doubt that there would be continuity” in U.S. aid to Ukraine no matter the political dispensation of the next Congress. His conversations on the Hill have given him the impression of “unwavering bipartisan support for Ukraine even in circumstances where people in this country talk about polarization on virtually every other topic.”
Both the United States and the E.U.’s 27 member states have committed billions of dollars in military and financial aid to Kyiv. There’s a degree of consensus among senior leadership among both the Democrats and Republicans that this support ought to continue as long as Ukraine is weathering Russian attacks. This week, the European Commission announced a proposed package of some $18 billion to help the Ukrainian government meet its short-term funding needs in 2023.
“This is an existential battle for us,” Lambrinidis said, adding that Europe is committed to Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” That’s no small order: The war has forced a bitter price on Europe; its societies and economies are affected by the major sanctions their governments imposed on Russia. A cold winter and skyrocketing heating costs are expected to add to the wider strains of the war, whose downstream effects have seen it be a catalyst for the collapse of a government in Sri Lanka and the onset of a likely famine in Somalia.
The war in Ukraine itself is exacting a brutal toll. The Pentagon believes that as many as 200,000 soldiers may have already died in nine months of fighting — 100,000 Russians and an equivalent number of Ukrainians, in addition to some 40,000 civilians.