Americans’ growing opposition to Washington’s support for Kyiv

As the Biden administration and its other Western allies stepped up military aid to Ukraine in recent weeks, a growing number of Americans think the United States is supporting Ukraine too much, according to Fars International News Group.

About a quarter of Americans, 26 percent, think U.S. support for Ukraine is too much, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. This percentage has increased since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of last year and has grown by six percent since September.

According to the Hill News website, the United States has sent billions of dollars to Ukraine to support its military in the war against Russia. In the $1.7 trillion package passed by Congress late last year, lawmakers included about $45 billion in funding for Ukraine and NATO allies.

But the level of spending has come under fire from some Republican lawmakers who argue that the country has opened its pockets for Ukraine at an unsustainable level. Kevin McCarthy, then the Republican House Minority Leader, said in October that Republicans would not give a blank check in support of Ukraine if they won a majority in the House (which they did). Republican Representative Lauren Bobert also wrote on Twitter that President Biden should understand that America is not an ATM machine.

In line with the opinion of prominent Republicans, the poll of 5,152 people, with a margin of error of 1.7 percentage points, found that a combined 40 percent of Republican voters and leaning independents think the United States is too supportive of Ukraine. Meanwhile, in September, 32 percent had this idea, and just after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, nine percent believed this.

While Republicans’ attitudes toward supporting Ukraine have softened, the poll also found that they see the war in Ukraine as less of a threat to the United States than before. Only 29 percent of Republicans and their affiliated independents think war is a major threat.

In March 2022, Republicans were more likely to view Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a direct threat to the United States, but now Democrats are more likely to believe so at 43 percent.

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