Republican pressure: why Ukraine trembles ahead of US midterm elections “Old guy”: Polish politician fiercely criticized after alcohol statement on women

Marjorie Taylor Greene is known for her shrill tones. She continues to say that Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential election was stolen, or makes other crude statements — a Republican campaign appearance in Sioux City, Iowa, a few days ago, was no exception.

Only one border matters to Democrats, and that’s not the southern border of the US, which Republicans repeatedly warn against as a gateway for illegal migration. The Democrats, on the other hand, are only concerned with Ukraine’s borders. “Our people come first,” Taylor Greene shouts to the audience. What does that mean to you? “Among the Republicans, not a cent goes to Ukraine.” The crowd cheers.

Now Taylor Greene herself faces Republican states on the fringes of the party: The staunch Trump supporter openly represents far-right conspiracy theories — and there are other views in her party on the Ukraine issue, too. Influential Republican Mitch McConnell, who leads his party in the Senate, is keen to send more US weapons to Ukraine.

Greene isn’t entirely alone in her party, though: House minority leader Kevin McCarthy recently said the United States would “stop issuing blank checks” to Ukraine. JD Vance, who is running for a Senate seat in Ohio, also recently emphasized that the US had paid Ukraine enough money. In February, he revealed to far-right former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in a podcast that he didn’t care what happened in Ukraine.

Europe should stretch

All of this shows that the midterm elections are not just about power in America. But also about the future of Ukraine. “So far there is an unbiased consensus that you want to support Ukraine,” US expert Laura von Daniels of the Science and Politics Foundation said in an interview with t-online.

But that could change after the congressional election: Chances are, McCarthy and his comrades-in-arms will at least regain the majority in the House of Representatives. There they could then block new aid payments or arms deliveries from President Joe Biden. So will the US inevitably backtrack soon – or are the conservative threats just campaign bluster?

Christian Mölling of the German Council for Foreign Relations (DGAP) does not see any problems for Ukraine in the short term. The reason: The administration of US President Joe Biden made provisions over the summer and put together such extensive aid packages that there could be no uncertainty in Kiev for the time being – no matter how the interim terms turn out. “This means that military support can continue for a while,” says the expert.

However, it is also clear that Europe would have to stretch if the US did not provide as much support in the longer term as before. For example, if the supply of weapons were to disappear permanently, the discussion about battle tanks and armored vehicles in Europe would flare up again. According to Mölling, Germany would then be challenged mainly because of its industry – “but we cannot fall back on an arsenal of reserves such as the Americans have”.

“Only the US can supply that to Ukraine”

Figures from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy show how reliant Ukraine is on US support. By comparison, over the same period, the EU’s institutions pledged just over 16 billion Swiss francs. Germany comes to a total of only 3.3 billion francs.

But not only these amounts show how much the US is important to Ukraine. When it comes to military reconnaissance, Christian Mölling explains, the importance of the US is even greater:

Without the American situation picture, which is based, among other things, on information from the secret service, reconnaissance flights and electronic surveillance, it will be much more difficult for President Volodymyr Zelenskyj’s troops to identify and hit Russian targets, according to the military expert. “Only the United States can supply that to Ukraine.”

Republican voters are increasingly critical of Ukraine’s course

Should Republicans win a major election victory now, the question is whether America will remain as committed to Ukraine as it has been until now – not least because all aid costs a lot of money.

The possible argument of the Republicans: why should we continue to support Ukraine with our money while our prices are going through the roof? Because even in the meantime, rising costs are the dominant problem among voters.

This line, which Greene also represents, would fit perfectly into ex-President Donald Trump’s “America First” principle. The ex-president is likely to announce his candidacy for the White House again next week.

Trump has repeatedly found praise for Putin in the past. Moreover, even during his time as president, he was accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine in order to launch a smear campaign against Biden. “If Trump were president now, he would probably push for negotiations with Russia,” said Laura von Daniels.

No majority opinion

In all of this, Ukraine’s skepticism is not yet part of the mainstream — neither among the American population as a whole, nor among Republicans. According to an October poll by Ipsos, nearly two-thirds of Americans still believe it is appropriate that the US government supplies arms to Kiev.

However, figures from the Pew Research Center also show that conservative support is waning: where in May only 9 percent of their supporters thought the United States supported Ukraine too much, it was 32 percent in September.

Criticism against new aid is also evident in the Trump-founded “Truth Social” network, says US expert Laura von Daniels. According to Newsweek, a total of 57 Conservative MPs have so far rejected any aid package for Ukraine. That number could rise after Wednesday if a particularly large number of Trump-backed politicians win.

Excitement over letter from Democrats

But even among Democrats, Biden’s support for Ukraine is not universally supported: In late October, 30 left-wing MPs wrote a letter calling on the president to change course in the Ukraine war and start peace negotiations. However, this too is not a majority position in the Biden party: the signatories rowed back a day after publication.

A Daniels expert in the White House sees no deviation from the previous course. The US administration has made such a clear commitment to Ukraine that a course correction by Joe Biden is unlikely, even with a major shift in Congress.

Nevertheless, it will likely become more difficult for the US president to continue his current line after the election. Biden would then probably have to resort to other instruments in the fight against Russia. Von Daniels believes that the US president can respond more strongly to Russian aggression with sanctions in the future. Because Biden can impose it without Congress.