Arguably, the USA no longer cares about Ukraine as is self-evident since the Gaza crisis emerged. House Republicans have already stymied the latest tranche of funding that President Biden is trying to allocate for Kyiv. Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding out for a potential return to power of former president Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential candidate for the November election. Trump may scale back support for Ukraine and take a friendlier view of the Kremlin’s security concerns in Eastern Europe.
Ukraine confronts a grim 2024. The battlefield is stalemated. Its cities are facing persistent Russian attacks. The resolve of its Western partners may be flagging. This isn’t the outcome Ukraine and its backers most feared when Russia started the current conflict— but it isn’t what they hoped for once Kyiv weathered that assault and took the offensive. A protracted conflict raises a vexing question: Might different US choices over the first two years of the war have put Ukraine in a stronger position today? This question matters now because President Joe Biden’s strategy on this has certainly not been optimal. But fundamentally changing the trajectory of the war would almost certainly have required America to run higher risks of escalation — and to do so when it had only limited ability to predict Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response.
The current situation
The Russian perspective on the Ukraine conflict, emphasizes the need for guarantees to neutralize Ukraine and the role of NATO’s advanced bases in Eastern European countries.
