US Political Support and Strategy for Ukraine Amid Conflict

Today I planned to start with different questions, but because of the shelling that happened, I have to ask: how was your night? I have been living here since the fifth day of the full-scale war, so I experience air raid alarms just like any Ukrainian. I’ve come to think of them as Putin’s symphonies, because they always have too many percussion instruments and not enough strings, since he only needs one string – the one around his neck.

Do you plan to inform your colleagues in Congress about the real situation in Ukraine? Next week I will be in Washington. I worked in Congress for a Republican for seven years and have many friends there. I am going to tell them what I see, as well as about the victories of Ukrainians. Without a navy, they control the Black Sea. Spending about $100,000 on drones as part of Operation “Spiderweb,” they have destroyed Russian military equipment worth $7 billion. Yes, the Russians capture small patches of land, but taking one village in Donetsk region cost them thousands of soldiers. This is hardly talked about, and I believe it is even more important than showing the destruction caused by drones.

Previously, we saw strong bipartisan support in the US. How do you assess its level now? It’s complicated. For example, the bill on sanctions against Russia is supported by 80 senators out of 100, many of whom are Republicans. They act in the interests of their voters. We conducted a survey among participants in the Republican primaries – 84% of them support additional sanctions against Russia.

The problem lies with a group of people surrounding Donald Trump who provide him with incorrect information about Ukraine and Russia. Based on this information, decisions are sometimes made that are geopolitically unfounded and politically wrong, since only 8% of Republican voters have a positive attitude toward Putin. And every time Trump tries to get closer to Putin, most of his party does not accept it.

How do Trump’s voters react to his policies, particularly regarding Ukraine? The problem is that currently Americans’ attention is distracted by the war between Israel and Iran, as well as the recently passed tax law, which strongly affects every American. So right now, people are paying little attention to Ukraine.

However, support for Ukraine among Republicans remains strong. This is key, since Republicans control the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House. Democratic politicians can hardly do anything, and Democratic voters have limited influence.

One of Ukraine’s problems is that there used to be a strategy of cooperation with the Biden administration, which had some success, although we waited a year or two before Biden allowed Ukraine to use American weapons on Russian territory. However, with Trump, the strategy that worked with the Democrats does not work.

What strategy would you advise Ukraine to adopt? Here is one example. Pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian messages have for years attacked President Zelensky and Ukraine in conservative media and among conservative opinion leaders. People like Tucker Carlson often have trouble telling the truth about Ukraine. Kyiv and the pro-Ukrainian community in the US try to respond to these attacks through CNN or CBS, where, for example, Zelensky recently gave an interview on the program “60 Minutes.”

But 24% of Republicans watch Tucker Carlson, CBS only 4%, and CNN just 1%. So Republicans have been receiving false information about Ukraine for many years, while responses to this disinformation come from media they don’t watch and don’t trust.

Therefore, when President Zelensky appeared on the platform of popular conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro, it was a big victory. Ben Shapiro reaches 12% of Republican voters.

I believe this is a simple and very effective direction that Ukrainian communicators should focus on: getting into the right media, reaching the right opinion leaders. And it’s not even necessary to reach Tucker Carlson’s audience directly through him. In America, there are 500 smaller influential people who have access to his audience.

We work precisely with such people and have already had successes. For example, we created the film “Faith Under Siege,” which tells the stories of Ukrainian Christians who were tortured and killed for their faith. This works very effectively with the American Christian audience that votes Republican and helps them understand why it is important to support Ukraine. We distribute this film through conservative opinion leaders and media, and in three weeks we reached 7% of Republican primary voters.

Now about perhaps the hottest topic – the suspension of US military aid. Do you understand why this happened and how critical this pause is? No, and honestly, no one understands. What might help understand the Trump administration is the fact that any new presidential administration works chaotically in the first six months. For example, right now Marco Rubio is simultaneously Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and holds half a dozen other positions. The foreign policy team lacks people because even those at lower levels of the system have been fired. So many decisions are made without proper coordination. The bad news is it’s hard to understand what’s going on. But the good news is everything can change quickly.

I want to draw your attention to two points: Donald Trump is capable of sharply changing his position. He turned 180 degrees on tariffs. He changed his attitude toward Elon Musk so abruptly that he literally “threw him out of the car while it was moving.” So Trump is ready to change his mind. The main thing is to provide him with the right information that will help him make better decisions.

US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that this suspension of military aid is just one of the changes regarding support for Ukraine. Do you know anything about this? No one understood anything. But regarding Donald Trump, I always say this: if you get hung up on every news from the White House or worry about every statement from Trump, you’ll have to switch to whiskey and tranquilizers.

This does not mean that the suspension of arms supplies can be ignored. No, it’s serious. But I will refer to Winston Churchill’s words, who spent two or three years convincing Franklin Roosevelt to provide weapons to Great Britain. He tried everything – there’s even a great film called “Darkest Hour” about it. Eventually, Churchill said: “Americans always make the right choice – after trying all the other options.” I think we are exactly in such a situation now.

It is obvious to both you and me: if air defense weakens, hundreds, maybe thousands of Ukrainian civilians will die. I don’t think such a situation would be beneficial for Trump in the eyes of American voters. So I don’t think he will allow it. But Ukrainians and Americans who support Ukraine need to fight with all their might to restore aid.

Today Trump and Zelensky had a phone conversation. Yesterday there was also a phone call between Trump and Putin. How do you assess the importance of such dialogues? It seems that every time Trump talks to Putin, a record number of drones and missiles fly into Ukraine. So I would prefer these conversations to happen less often. But I believe it is very important for President Zelensky to communicate with Donald Trump. Unfortunately, for many reasons, they have not developed good personal relations. So the more they can develop these relations, the better.

I also advise Ukrainians to remember: Trump is only one of a few people from whom Ukraine can get weapons. There are only three or four such people in the world. Another is the Chancellor of Germany. Another is Emmanuel Macron, who could do a lot to strengthen military aid to Ukraine.

Belgium froze $200 billion of Russian assets and has done almost nothing with them since 2022. Meanwhile, Europe collectively spent $33 billion on purchasing Russian liquefied gas. That’s enough to pay for all the Iranian Shahed drones, buy a new T-90 tank for every tank destroyed in Ukraine – and still have enough left to buy Putin five new superyachts.

So Europeans are effectively financing both sides of this war. They need to act more actively because regardless of their attitude toward Trump, Europeans must take more responsibility for their own defense. Europe’s spending on Russian gas is even increasing.

Look at Italy: they want to build a bridge and count it as a contribution to NATO’s budget. Spain – the world’s twelfth largest economy – simply said: “No, we will not help” increase NATO spending. Macron talks very loudly, but I was in Donetsk region and saw no French Leclerc tanks there. Last year France paid Russia more for gas than it provided Ukraine for defense.

Therefore, we cannot put all our hopes only on the US. We need to pressure Europe, persuade them, do everything possible so that Europe finally takes seriously the fact that it is effectively participating in the war.

And one last question about your work in Ukraine. Could you tell us how your Ukraine Freedom Project operates? And what were you doing in the US before starting this activity? In the US, I had a good life. As far as I remember, there were no air raid alarms there. I worked successfully as a top manager in a tech company. On January 31, 2022, I left it.

I was just thinking about how to spend the rest of the winter – skiing in the Alps or the American Rockies. Then my friends in Ukraine – I have many – started writing to me: “Kyiv is being bombed. We don’t know what to do.”

I had previously spent almost two years in Iraq as a civilian, so I knew what to do. I got on a plane, flew to Bucharest, and on the fifth day of the war arrived in Chernivtsi and began helping. At first, I thought it would be a “three-day military operation.” But when that didn’t happen, I got involved in humanitarian aid because many international organizations that should have been working on this were not coping.

After a year, I realized the best thing I could do was return to my former colleagues in Congress and tell them the truth about what is happening here. Because Americans in general, and Republicans in particular, receive very poor quality information.

People know me, trust me, I have been on the front about fifty times. And I started simply telling the truth as I see it. It worked. Last year we played an important role in Speaker Johnson supporting a new aid package for Ukraine.

We also work very actively on the issue of persecution of Christians. Russians torture and kill Ukrainian Christians for their faith, especially evangelicals. And 35% of Trump’s voters are exactly those. In the occupied territories of Ukraine, there is currently not a single Catholic priest, and 25% of Trump’s voters are Catholics.

When these people learn that those who pray like them are being tortured and imprisoned, they start to see Ukraine differently.

So we are very focused on this now. I urge your viewers to watch our film “Faith Under Siege.” It’s a 58-minute film, and I believe it has a very strong emotional impact on American Christians.

What are you working on now? Next week I am returning to Washington. There I will communicate with members of Congress, their aides, and hopefully some people in the administration. I provide them with direct, personal information about what is happening here. And I hope we can influence the situation.

And one more thing: it is a great honor for me to be here, in Ukraine, and to be part of Ukraine’s fight for freedom.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune, and Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in Washington.