Americans' Support for Arming Ukraine Plummets in New Poll

The poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, showed only 41 percent of respondents said they agreed that the United States should provide weapons to Ukraine, down from 65 percent of respondents who said the same in a June 2023 survey.

That decline in support for sending weapons to Ukraine extends across parties. Democratic support dropped from 81 percent in June to 52 percent in October.

Republican support dropped from 56 percent to 35 percent in the same period. Independent support dropped from 57 percent to 44 percent.

pic.twitter.com/W9i9YEM8uA

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 1, 2023

🚨 MUST WATCH: Arestovich spills the beans! … again.

He says:
- West wants to freeze the war
- Zelensky will need to sign it the deal, or leave
- Ukraine screwed it up
- Too much corruption

-> I am convinced now, he’s the controlled oposition and aims for the president’s job! pic.twitter.com/e9uayzporE

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) October 5, 2023

Biden administration officials are far more worried about corruption in Ukraine than they publicly admit, a confidential U.S. strategy document obtained by POLITICO suggests.

The "sensitive but unclassified" version of the long-term U.S. plan lays out numerous steps Washington is taking to help Kyiv root out malfeasance and otherwise reform an array of Ukrainian sectors. It stresses that corruption could cause Western allies to abandon Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion, and that Kyiv cannot put off the anti-graft effort.

"Perceptions of high-level corruption" the confidential version of the document warns, could "undermine the Ukrainian public's and foreign leaders' confidence in the war-time government."

[...] Ukrainian graft has long been a concern of U.S. officials all the way up to President Joe Biden. But the topic was deemphasized in the wake of Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion, which Biden has called a real-life battle of democracy against autocracy.

For months, Biden aides stuck to brief mentions of corruption. They wanted to show solidarity with Kyiv and avoid giving fuel to a small number of Republican lawmakers critical of U.S. military and economic aid for Ukraine.

More than a year into the full-scale war, U.S. officials are pressing the matter more in public and private. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, for instance, met in early September with a delegation from Ukrainian anti-corruption institutions.

A second U.S. official familiar with the discussions confirmed to POLITICO reports that the Biden administration is talking to Ukrainian leaders about potentially conditioning future economic aid on "reforms to tackle corruption and make Ukraine a more attractive place for private investment."

[...] "Deoligarchization, particularly of the energy and mining sectors, is a core tenet to building back a better Ukraine," the public part of the strategy declares. One indicator of success, the confidential version states, is that the Ukrainian government "embraces meaningful reforms decentralizing control of the energy sector."