Whether and how the United States should continue sending money to Ukraine one year into its conflict with Russia appear as increasingly complicated questions for lawmakers to answer.
It’s a topic dividing Republicans in Congress as they prepare to use what little leverage they have from a narrow House majority to demand policy concessions and spending cuts that could include aid to Ukraine.
TIMELINE OF RUSSIA'S YEARLONG WAR IN UKRAINE
But it’s also an issue that, a year and an election cycle past the start of the Russian invasion, divides the public as well.
Fewer Americans now support continuing aid to Ukraine than they did at the outset of the conflict.
While an AP-NORC poll showed in May of last year that 60% supported sending weapons to Ukraine, the same poll found in January that only 48% of U.S. adults still approved of doing so.
Even more Americans opposed sending funds to support the Ukrainian government. Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they backed sending government funds to Ukraine, while 38% said they opposed it.
Congress has sent $113 billion to the Ukrainian conflict since last year. Only $62 billion of that has gone to the Pentagon to provide military support, according to the Congressional Research Service. The rest of the money has gone to humanitarian assistance and financial support for the Ukrainian government, and those U.S. contributions have dwarfed what any other country has provided Ukraine.
But the precise destinations of much of the funding are unclear.
The Pentagon’s watchdog has warned repeatedly that the Defense Department’s convoluted data systems “could limit the transparency” of how military aid to Ukraine is being spent.
And the Ukrainian government’s notorious corruption has led some U.S. lawmakers to question how the funding is being spent. Corruption remains a problem for the government, especially during wartime; the deputy minister of defense, for example, resigned last month after allegedly buying food for the Ukrainian Army at prices well above market value.
“The money for Ukraine, we need to follow and make sure it’s being spent accordingly,” Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) told the Washington Examiner earlier this month. “Not another dime should be spent in Ukraine until we get all of the information about how it’s being spent so far.”
Republicans, whose primary demand for Ukraine funding is more transparency, represent the center of a debate between two poles of the party.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has expressed affinity for this group; he said even before the midterm elections that Ukraine should no longer get a “free blank check” from Congress without at least additional safeguards.
Since then, he’s had to contend with the broad range of opinions on the issue within his conference.
Some Republicans, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) and Matt Gaetz (FL), think Congress should turn off the spigot completely for Ukraine.
“Ukraine is not a NATO member nation,” Greene told the Washington Examiner. “Our country has spent $113 billion on this war against Russia in the country of Ukraine, and at the same time, we are giving them $1.1 billion a month to prop up their government.”
“That’s a perfect place to stop spending right there,” she added.
Others, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), believe continuing the support is necessary to protect U.S. interests in the face of Russian aggression. He said continuing the aid was “morally right” and “a direct investment in cold, hard American interests” in December.
Republicans stranded in the middle of those two views want to hear more specific assurances from the Biden administration about how and why money should continue to flow, if at all.
“I think the average GOP voter is showing some wisdom and questioning how long we're going to fund a war with no obvious strategic endpoint,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told the Washington Examiner.
“I think on both the House and the Senate side, you're seeing the growth of skepticism” of continuing the aid at current levels, Vance said.
But Vance acknowledged the battle to stop supporting Ukraine could prove difficult and conceded it is the job of skeptics like himself to convince others to reconsider the funding.
Aid to Ukraine could factor into debt ceiling negotiations among House Republicans.
The only point of agreement among GOP lawmakers is that spending cuts should accompany a vote to raise the debt limit; any consensus on what to cut, and by how much, remains nonexistent.
Proposals to cut the Pentagon budget, or at least reexamine areas that could include potentially wasteful spending, lost momentum over the past several weeks amid rising tensions with China. The take-down of a purported Chinese surveillance balloon by the U.S. military caused some Republicans to double down on maintaining the Pentagon budget at current levels.
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Ukraine aid is even more of a controversial area for prospective budget cuts than the broader military budget.
Republicans have recently entertained less divisive ideas for reducing the national debt, including an effort to claw back unspent pandemic relief funds and a separate proposal to add more work requirements to entitlement programs.