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Florida governor and likely presidential candidate Ron DeSantis derided the Biden administration’s “blank check funding” of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
DeSantis added the United States “has many vital national interests” but that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not among them.
DeSantis’s remarks are aligned with former President Donald Trump in opposing the establishment Republican policy of backing Kiev.
DeSantis, who is considered all but certain to join the 2024 race, made the comments in writing late Monday to Fox News, which asked major Republican presidential candidates for their views on what is certain to be one of the most pressing foreign policy issues in next year’s election, according to Reuters.
The 44-year-old was asked whether opposing Russia in Ukraine was a vital American national strategic interest.
“The Biden administration’s virtual ‘blank check’ funding of this conflict for ‘as long as it takes,’ without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,” DeSantis added.
Meanwhile, Trump also responded to the question that whether US backing for Ukraine was vital for Washington. He said: “No, but it is for Europe. But not for the United States.”
“I think we’re beginning to see a crack in the political class consensus, at least apparently. Among the entire population, there is a natural aversion to war, and most people are not in favor of being impoverished in order to feed a war that serves someone else,” said New York-based journalist Don DeBar.
“But these feelings need to be reified with a public discussion that informs each person that their feelings are shared. I think Tucker Carlson and some others – not many others – provided that crack in the dike, and I think it will only accelerate going forward,” he added.
Over the past year, Ukraine has been showered with weapons and billions of dollars in financial support by the United States and its allies.
Russia began its “special operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 with a declared aim of “demilitarizing” Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk self-proclaimed republics. Back in 2014, the two republics, which are predominantly Russian-speaking, broke away from Ukraine, prompting Kiev to launch a bloody war against both regions. The years-long conflict has killed more than 14,000 people, mostly in the Donbas.
Since the onset of the conflict between the two countries, the United States and its European allies have unleashed an array of unprecedented sanctions against Russia and poured numerous batches of advanced weapons into Ukraine to help its military fend off the Russian troops, despite repeated warnings by the Kremlin that such measures will only prolong the war.
