Fatigue over Ukraine is a clear and present danger

Editorial: If America wants Ukraine to win this war, it will have to be in this for the long run. That’s a truth that few around DC seem keen to embrace

Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska is urging allies not to forget the war with Russia (AFP)

A few days ago, Olena Zelenska, first lady of Ukraine, sent a direct and heartfelt message to friends and allies around the world: “We really need the help. In simple words, we cannot get tired of this situation, because if we do, we die.”

Fatigue about Ukraine is a clear and present danger, not just to the nation’s future as a free and independent nation, but to the security of Europe and the West as a whole. Her distress about trends in public opinion among Ukraine’s allies was deepened by the vote in the US Senate that, in effect, froze vital military aid.

The Republican caucus, irrationally and stubbornly, decided to take the Ukrainian people hostage to extract more concessions from Joe Biden on the vexed problem of irregular migration through America’s border with Mexico.

Whatever the merits of the arguments, it is not in the American national interest to hand victory to Vladimir Putin because of a domestic political wrangle, no matter how critical it is to constituents in the border states.

In fact, mingling these issues is as bizarre as it is damaging. As the president remarked, history will “judge harshly those who turned their back on freedom’s cause”. But his political opponents in Congress have their eyes focussed not on posterity, but the immediate future and the elections next year, hoping for a Republican resurgence and the return of Donald Trump.

That, it hardly needs stating, would represent an even greater calamity for Ukraine and the West as a whole, given Mr Trump’s apparent willingness to dismember Ukraine according to Russian desires.

But by withholding military assistance, the senators risk a rout of the smaller Ukrainian forces that rely on superior Western technology, and the arrival of President Putin’s army on Nato’s eastern borders.

Not for the first time, Republican leaders seem to putting partisan interest before that of country – and with scant regard for their allies in Europe. The whiff of isolationism in Washington is strong; it is accompanied by the acrid stench of appeasement towards Russian aggression.

This is the miserable deadlock in Washington that Volodymyr Zelensky is flying into, at the invitation of Mr Biden. Originally Mr Zelensky was due to make a video address to the Senate to appeal for help. Now, he will speak to those willing to risk the very existence of his country face to face. The hard-nosed Republicans in the Senate are unlikely to be unduly swayed by appeals to reason, justice or even the American national interest.

Such is the polarised, hyper-partisan, culture that has developed in recent years, propelled by primitive Trumpian populism, that the reasoned case argued by Mr Zelensky will be heard politely, but cynically ignored without concessions from the White House on migration. There are few votes to be gained in forthcoming primaries and next November’s contests from doing the right thing in Ukraine, and electoral politics in the United States tends to be brutal.

Still, there is hope. Mr Biden arrived in Washington as a Senator from Delaware in 1973, and remained there until 2009. His election as vice president propelled him into a role where much of his time was spent cutting deals with his old colleagues and, occasionally, friends.

No president since Lyndon Johnson possesses the same experience and negotiating capacity as Mr Biden, and there are rumours that meetings and discussions are already underway to break the deadlock. The fact that the Senate has also blocked military aid to Israel should also concentrate minds around Capitol Hill. That is certainly not a sustainable stance.

The White House says it is going to get “more engaged” this week, and the impending Christmas break also presents a useful informal deadline for those involved to reach a compromise. Despite the occasional violent language and bitterness, worse stalemates than this one have been resolved in the past.

The physical presence of President Zelensky could also make a difference. If not, and if President Putin gets an unexpected seasonal gift of strategic territorial gains in Ukraine, then the Republican senators will only have themselves to blame for having to send even more arms in due course.

It is almost two years since Mr Putin launched his “special military operation” and, assuming US aid is resumed, Russia will be as far away from annexing Ukraine as ever; although it is becoming a war of attrition.

If it wants Ukraine to win this war, America will have to be in this for the long run. That’s a truth that few around Washington DC seem keen to embrace.