Since entering office, Trump has promised to promptly end the three-year-old war between Russia and Ukraine. But his approach to doing so has alarmed many U.S. allies, as his administration recently opened up talks with Russia and signalled openness to peace talks that could potentially embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and sideline Ukraine. Plus, a disastrous meeting in the White House with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week has left the U.S. alliance with Ukraine in question, once again putting Trump at odds with European leaders.
That would be a shift not only from U.S. policy under Biden, but from the outcome most Americans say they want: Americans have been sympathetic to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country three years ago. A strong bipartisan majority of Americans, 70 percent, said the U.S. should call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine that “guarantees Ukrainian security,” per an Ipsos poll from Dec. 13-15. Meanwhile, a Morning Consult poll in December found that while a growing number of Americans (as well as Europeans) believe the war could end soon, 47 percent said the U.S. should not push Ukraine into territorial concessions, even if that means lengthening the war.
Of course, there’s always been a limit to what Americans think the U.S. should do to aid Ukraine: Fifty-eight percent in the Ipsos poll said the U.S. can’t afford to take any military action in Ukraine, and polling by Pew Research Center has found that a growing percentage of Americans think we’ve committed too much support to Ukraine as the war dragged on. Unsurprisingly, that split has grown especially along party lines: A plurality of 47 percent of Republicans said the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine while a plurality of 35 percent of Democrats said we weren’t providing enough, in a Pew Research Center survey from Feb. 3-9.
Partisan splits are likely to keep shaping U.S. opinion on the issue as well. A Morning Consult poll from Feb. 21-24 found that only 26 percent of Republicans viewed Zelenskyy favorably and 39 percent view him unfavorably, while in contrast half of Democrats viewed him favorably and 14 percent viewed him unfavorably. And 37 percent of Republicans thought the U.S. should push Ukraine to let Russia keep the territory it’s gained in order to end the war, a jump up from the 28 percent who said the same in December; the numbers for Democrats were 20 percent and 18 percent, respectively.
—Monica Potts, 538