From News Nation:
“Half of US public approves of arms deliveries to Ukraine”
Like the blue and yellow flags that popped up around the U.S.
when Russia invaded Ukraine 15 months ago, U.S. popular support for
Washington’s backing of Ukraine has faded a little but remains widespread, a
survey by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and NORC
shows.
It found that half of the people in the U.S. support the
Pentagon’s ongoing supply of weapons to Ukraine for its defense against Russian
forces. That level is nearly unchanged in the past year, while about a quarter
are opposed to sustaining the military lifeline that has now topped $37
billion. Big majorities among both Democrats and Republicans believe Russia’s
attack on Ukraine was unjustified, according to the poll, taken last month. And
about three out of four people in the U.S. support the United States playing at
least some role in the conflict, the survey found.
The findings are in line with what Ukraine’s ambassador says
she sees when she makes appearances at think tanks, fancy dinners, embassy
parties and other events to rally vital U.S. backing for her country. “I feel
the support is still strong,” Ambassador Oksana Markarova said, even as
tensions with China, domestic politics, mass shootings and other news often top
Ukraine’s war in U.S. news coverage these days. “There are other things
happening at the same time,” she said. “But I feel the very strong bipartisan
support.”
When it comes to specific kinds of U.S. backing for Ukraine,
popular support for U.S. sanctions against Russia has experienced the most
significant drop, falling from 71% a year ago to 58% this spring, although
that’s still a majority. The decline in support for the sanctions may reflect
people’s concern that the efforts to isolate Russia economically have
contributed to inflation, analysts said. Overall, however, the findings show
that a couple of early concerns U.S. policymakers had about the strong material
assistance for Ukraine have yet to be realized: that public support would
crater if the war dragged on, and that the heavy assistance to Ukraine would
become a partisan wedge issue, splitting Democrats and Republicans. “There’s no
ground-swelling of American Ukraine fatigue here, and that has always been the
fear,” said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp.
research center.
For Cameron Hill, a 27-year-old state employee and Republican
in Anadarko, Oklahoma, there was much to dislike about Russia’s war and its
leader, Vladimir Putin: the statements from Putin that Hill took as misleading
propaganda, his heavy-handed rule, and Russian fighters’ attacks on civilians
and other abuses. From the start of the Ukraine war, “there was killing of
civilians, raping,” Hill said. “It didn’t seem like a moral-run military in the
first place.” By contrast, video showing the courage of a Ukrainian fighter as
he appeared to be executed by Russian fighters stood out to Hill. “His last
words were something along the lines of ‘Slava Ukraini,’” or Glory to Ukraine,
Hill said.
The vast majority of U.S. adults believe that Russia has
committed war crimes during the conflict, including 54% who say Russia is the
only side that has done so. The International Criminal Court at the Hague in
the Netherlands in March issued arrest warrants for Putin over Russia’s mass
deportation of Ukrainian children.
Older adults are more likely to view Russia’s invasion as an
unjustified attempt to overthrow Ukraine’s government — 79% among people 45 and
older, compared with 59% for those 44 and under.
In all, 62% regard Russia as an enemy — or top enemy — of the
United States. And 48% are very worried about Russia’s influence around the
world. At the same time, 50% say they have a favorable opinion of the Russian
people, compared with 17% who have an unfavorable view.
Only 8% of people in the U.S. say they have a favorable view
of Putin.
Americans’ view of Russia and its leader has already been a
flashpoint in U.S. politics, as when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drew criticism
this spring for dismissing Ukraine’s fight against Russian forces as a
“territorial dispute.” The remark was associated with a drop in support for
DeSantis, a prospective Republican presidential candidate.
When it comes to the war itself, “it’s unfortunate that it’s
going on as long as it is. And I can’t imagine, you know, living there, and
that would be my life everyday, with bombs going off,” said Laura Salley, 60, a
college mental-health counselor in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a Democrat. “But
if we pull back, I’m pretty sure that Russia would find that as an opportunity
to encroach again,” Salley said.
The poll of 1,180 adults was conducted April 13-17 using a
sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed
to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for
all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
^ Half of 330 Million Americans is still 165 Million
Americans. I think Americans tend to “forget” things quickly – like most didn’t
realize the US was fighting in Afghanistan for 20 years until the Fall of Kabul
in August 2021.
That doesn’t mean we don’t care about or support Ukraine
against Russia – just that there are so many events, issues, problems to
constantly think about.
Bottom-Line: The US and the World needs to continue to
support Ukraine until Russia is defeated there. ^
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