(CNSNews.com) – On Feb. 20, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced President Joe Biden’s 32nd Presidential Drawdown, which includes $460 million in “additional security assistance” for Ukraine. This raises the total value of assistance provided to $29.7 billion since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
According to a Feb. 20 press release, Biden’s 32nd drawdown will include the following capabilities:
“To meet Ukraine’s evolving battlefield requirements, the United States will continue to work with its allies and partners to provide Ukraine with key capabilities,” said the DoD.
This latest installment of aid comes as Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In addition, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) assured the audience at the Munich Security Conference that Republican support for arming Ukraine will not dissipate. “Don’t look at Twitter, look at people in power,” McConnell told the conference.
McConnell’s assessment of where support for arming Ukraine lies is not unfounded. With the exception of a handful of senators with non-interventionist sympathies, a vast majority of Republicans in the Senate have voted in lockstep for increasingly arming Ukraine at every opportunity. While the House has more members speaking out against aid, they still only make up a fraction of the total GOP representatives.
However, despite the bipartisan support in Congress for the United States’ proxy war with Russia, public opinion polls reveal an increasingly skeptical electorate. A recent poll conducted by the Associated Press Center for Public Affairs Research showed that only 48% of respondents “strongly” or “somewhat” support sending weapons to Ukraine.