Ukraine Is Becoming A Dividing Line For GOP Hopefuls After Russian Commander’s Mutiny
Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny against his military superiors and Russian President Vladimir Putin is beginning to make itself felt an ocean away in the U.S. Republican primary race.
Former Vice President Mike Pence visited Volodomyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, NBC News reported Thursday, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Pence’s visit is the highest-profile endorsement of Zelenskyy yet by a Republican presidential candidate and a bid to contrast his stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict with that of the two top candidates, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, both of whom have been much more elusive about publicly choosing sides.
“I truly do believe that now, more than ever, we need leaders in our country who will articulate the importance of American leadership in the world,” Pence told NBC.
In a presidential primary season when Republican candidates other than Trump and DeSantis have had a tough time getting attention, touting support for Ukraine may provide a way for candidates to highlight their differences from the front-runners as well as burnish their national security credentials.
I truly do believe that now, more than ever, we need leaders in our country who will articulate the importance of American leadership in the world.Former Vice President Mike Pence
And with Ukraine beginning its long-awaited counteroffensive and Putin looking weak in the aftermath of a mutiny by one of his own commanders, it also gives candidates the chance to be seen backing the potentially winning side.
Pence’s visit came on the heels of the biggest public crack yet in Putin’s 23-year hold on power after Prigozhin’s Wagner Group of private military contractors shot down several Russian aircraft during an aborted run to Moscow on Saturday. Prigozhin stood down after reaching a still-mysterious deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
While Putin remains in power, the fact that Prigozhin was able to so publicly challenge him and remain alive to tell the tale, along with Putin’s public campaign since to demonstrate he remains in control, has cheered Ukraine and its allies in Washington — and created an opportunity for the GOP’s presidential hopefuls to talk up their stances on U.S. involvement.
The issue of how much the U.S. should get involved in the conflict has been a pressing question since Russia invaded Ukraine, its neighbor and a U.S. ally, in February 2022. The issue is likely to come to a head this fall as Congress will probably debate sending more military, humanitarian and economic aid on top of the $71 billion committed so far.
The mutiny has underscored Putin’s weakness, as well as the need to provide the weapons Ukraine has asked for, like F-16 fighters and ATACMS long-range missiles, said William Taylor, who was ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009.
“We’ve seen how fragile, brittle, the Russian military is, the Russian system is. So now’s the time to provide these weapons,” he told HuffPost on Wednesday.
Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, seen here testifying before the House Intelligence Committee in 2019, said it is time to provide Ukraine the weapons it says it needs to defend itself against Russia.
Taylor said providing the missile systems could help end the war as soon as this summer. “Let them win, but more than that, it’s help them win. And helping means giving them what they need.”
Former President Trump and Florida Gov. DeSantis have downplayed the need to send more aid. Trump has often bragged that he got along well with Putin while he was in office and initially described Putin’s invasion as showing “genius.”
In an interview with Reuters, Trump said Putin’s standing had been damaged.
“You could say that he’s still there, he’s still strong, but he certainly has been I would say somewhat weakened at least in the minds of a lot of people,” Trump told the wire service on Thursday. He also warned any successor to Putin “could be far worse.”
Trump said Ukrainians might have to give up some territory conquered by Russia in a peace deal, but their battlefield wins should be taken into account. “I think they would be entitled to keep much of what they’ve earned and I think that Russia likewise would agree to that,” he said.
Trump has been unwilling to call Putin a war criminal, despite vast evidence of war crimes and atrocities by Russian troops in Ukraine. Before the invasion, he was impeached for trying to withhold aid to Ukraine unless its leaders announced an investigation of Biden, then his Democratic rival for the 2020 election.
DeSantis, meanwhile, has been ambiguous on Ukraine since March, when he said the war — the biggest in Europe since World War II — was a mere “territorial dispute” that was not a vital U.S. interest. He then walked that assessment back after criticism.
Next in may be far worse!Former President Donald Trump, in a post on his social media site about Vladimir Putin
Other candidates, however, have been outspoken about the need to help Ukraine defend itself.
“It’s unfortunate, the two leading Republican nominees for president, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, [their] policy on Ukraine is wrong,” said one of the newest GOP candidates, former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, last Sunday on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”
“I wish they would stop fighting with American companies like Disney and be more interested in supporting our allies against attacks, against democracy,” Hurd added, in a slight against DeSantis’ legal battle over the entertainment company’s control of Disney World in Orlando.
Pence and Hurd are by no means alone in expressing support for Ukraine. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and onetime U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a CNN town hall on June 4 that “what we have to understand is, a win for Ukraine is a win for all of us.”
Former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has said "a win for Ukraine is a win for all of us."
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and another 2024 presidential candidate, said Monday in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he favored giving Ukraine the arms it needs and added that DeSantis and Trump “basically want to give away Ukraine.”
Polling shows declining support among Republicans for Ukraine even as support among the general population has remained relatively robust, and support may even have shot up in the wake of Prigozhin’s mutiny.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the mutiny was over found that 65% of respondents supported arming Ukraine, a hefty 19-percentage-point increase from a poll in May.
Republicans, though, had the lowest level of support, at 56%, compared with independents, 57%, and Democrats, 81%.
