Today NATO members pledged their support for an “irreversible path” for Ukraine to join the organization, but without a timeline.
The 75th anniversary summit in Washington D.C. also promised more military support, with $43.3 billion promised. And for many Ukrainians, it’s the hardware that matters most immediately.
In a large-scale survey of the Ukrainian public by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), published last week and conducted in May, 39 percent of Ukrainians said joining NATO is what’s needed for them to win the war – compared to 69 percent who prioritized “Ukraine’s allies sending it more weapons and ammunition.”
Much of that support comes from the U.S., but everywhere I go in Ukraine I’m asked how solid Washington’s support really is for the country, what happens if Donald Trump wins in November, and what were the warning signs before Washington abandoned Afghanistan.
These are hard questions, but the Ukrainians I speak to – mostly activists in Kyiv and Kharkiv – aren’t naive. They have noticed a switch in rhetoric from President Joe Biden in recent months, from promising to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” to promising to support the country for “as long as we can,” and that he is “not making promises” that the U.S. will provide Ukraine with the funding it needs.
In April, after months of delay, the U.S. Congress finally voted to send more arms to Ukraine, but the holdup fueled fears of U.S. unreliability.
In the ECFR survey, the U.S. came third behind the UK and Lithuania as being described as a “very reliable ally,” and one third of respondents admitted they were “strongly concerned that the U.S. would strike a peace deal with Russia without involving Kyiv.”
This suspicion of the U.S. by some Ukrainian activists in Kharkiv is also based on the failure of American diplomats to visit their city in the last two years, although dozens of diplomats from other countries have made the five-hour train ride out of the capital to see for themselves what is happening closer to the front line of fighting. And despite the large-scale human rights violations happening across the country, and the Biden administration’s rhetoric of putting “human rights at the center of foreign policy,” the U.S. embassy in Kyiv no longer has a full-time dedicated human rights officer.
And while the U.S. has provided substantial military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, figures released last week by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy showing Government support to Ukraine as a percentage of the donor country’s GDP, showed that between January 24, 2024 and April 30, 2024, the U.S. ranked 23rd, with 0.3 percent.
Kharkiv journalist Denys Glushko briefed U.S. Congressional staff in Washington D.C. in October 2023 about the realities of the war in Kharkiv. He now perceives “a certain ‘fatigue’ and the Ukrainian conflict is fading into the background, because, for instance, American and European voters have a lot of their own issues,” and “it’s only when Russia commits absolutely terrorist acts, such as the missile attack on the children’s hospital in Kyiv, that it gets attention abroad.”
Keeping a focus on what is happening in Ukraine remains a challenge for local human rights activists, especially outside the capital of Kyiv. Much of their work goes unnoticed, as we have documented in our latest report.
For those living in the city of Kharkiv under almost constant missile attacks, deliberations in Washington can seem distant and detached. Kharkiv – based editor Yana Sliemzina said “My prediction for the [NATO] summit was that they will promise more aid and say ‘Ukraine will definitely be in NATO some day…honestly’ and then go off to celebrate their anniversary.”
