On Friday, February 24th, 2023, it would be exactly one year since the war in Ukraine has been ongoing. We all thought at first that the war would be some sort of “Blitzkrieg.” It was supposed to be a matter of weeks, if not days, before Russia overcome Ukraine. Russia is the second-most powerful military in the world after the United States, with the highest nuclear-arsenal inventory, while Ukraine remains a small country on a military scale. It does not even have a single nuclear weapon in its military arsenal. Thus, an overwhelming military Russian invasion of Ukraine was expected, and the war was expected to be over within the next weeks. It turned out that Ukraine was more resilient than Putin anticipated.
While the West in general sided with Ukraine against Russia, the war profoundly divided American public opinion. The U.S. government is the largest supplier of military equipment to Ukraine. In 2022, Congress approved $113 billion of aid to Ukraine. Of these $113 billion approved in 2022, $67 billion has been allocated toward military expenditures, and the other $46 billion to non-military expenditures (economic support, government aid, humanitarian aid…etc). And President Biden recently added another $500 million to Ukraine to assist Ukraine militarily against Russia.
Source: Pew Research Center
This war divided Americans politically. The share of Americans who say the U.S. is providing too much support has grown significantly. More than 25% now say that the United States is providing too much support to Ukraine, while 31% say it is giving the right amount and 20% would like to see the United States give additional assistance. Moreover, there has been an increase in the share of Democrats who say that the United States is providing too much support to Ukraine. 15% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents currently assert this while 40% of Democrats claim that the United States is providing the right amount. 40% ofRepublicans and Republican-leaning independents, on the other hand, claim that the U.S. government is giving too much assistance to Ukraine, which hurts the American taxpayer.
President Trump argued that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the result of weak leadership from President Biden and defends Putin. President Trump essentially blames the United States for using NATO to expand its influence in Eastern Europe all the way to the Russian borders. He declared that Putin would have never gone to Ukraine if he were President. He believed that his negotiation skills as a businessman and dealmaker would have persuaded Putin to not invade Ukraine. President Trump believes in isolationism and sees NATO as an organization that robs the American taxpayer to assist European countries that have the means to defend themselves and no longer need America’s assistance. It must be said that under Trump's leadership, the United States was rather at peace with his most fierce enemies, notably Russia and North Korea. The former President has always exerted some admiration and fascination for the Russian autocrat.
Trump loyalists see President Zelensky as an opportunistic political leader who takes advantage of the war to stay prominent in international politics and enrich himself personally while Democrats see him as a hero fighting to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty against a tyrant with ideas of Hitlerian expansions.
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