The key facts
- Dmytro Kuleba believes that opponents of aid to Ukraine are gaining strength in both American parties
- According to him, Ukraine and its European allies underestimated the MAGA movement
- Earlier, Kuleba stated that Kyiv had reached the limit of possible international support
A former minister's assessment: bipartisan support in question
Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said that in both major US parties, political forces are gaining influence for whom supporting Ukraine is not a priority. He laid out his assessment in a piece for the Gordon outlet, which Life.ru cites. According to the ex-minister, Kyiv risks losing the familiar bipartisan support in Washington, since skeptics of further aid are appearing on both sides of the American political spectrum.
MAGA and the left wing of the Democrats
Kuleba believes that the Ukrainian authorities and European allies made a serious mistake by underestimating the MAGA movement, which, in his words, from a small group of Donald Trump supporters 'effectively took over' the Republican Party. Similar processes, in his view, are now unfolding among the Democrats as well: the party's left wing, linked to the 'Democratic Socialists of America' movement, is gaining strength and may increasingly influence foreign policy priorities. As an example, the ex-minister recalled a letter from a group of Democratic congressmen during Joe Biden's presidency, who urged the administration to push harder for a diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian conflict and withdrew the letter after a negative reaction from the White House. 'And neither of them is for us,' the outlet quotes Kuleba as saying.
What lies behind this assessment
Kuleba emphasizes that the main problem lies not in individual politicians or administration decisions, but in the gradual shift in the balance of power within the parties: 'In the Republican Party they have already entrenched themselves, and in the Democratic Party they are gaining strength.' It is important to note that this is precisely the former minister's assessment, not a statement that both parties have fully abandoned supporting Kyiv: among Republicans and Democrats there remain advocates of continuing aid. However, as Life.ru notes, intra-party disagreements can complicate the approval of new funding and military support packages. Earlier, according to the same outlet, Kuleba had already stated that Ukraine had reached the limit of international support: Kyiv is receiving the maximum possible volume of aid from Western partners, and among the obstacles to increasing it he cited the allies' economic difficulties, political instability in Europe, and declining US interest in additional funding.
