As the war in Ukraine enters its sixth month and shows no signs of abating, a Republican rift is growing over U.S. military support for Ukraine's fight against Russian invaders.
Which side of the GOP wins out could determine the extent of U.S. aid going forward if Republicans win control of Congress in November's midterm elections, as political forecasters are predicting will happen.
On one side, a small yet vocal faction of the Republican party that opposes the aid is getting noisier, warning they will fight to cut off the support if the GOP wins in November.
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On the other side are the more hawkish voices in the party that are taking the opposite stance -- that the Biden administration has been too cautious in providing military aid and needs to ship more advanced weapons more quickly to give Ukraine any chance of winning.
Some from both camps are suggesting that U.S. military advisers enter the country to monitor weapons shipments in a move that could put American troops in harm's way.
For now, bipartisan support remains strong for the billions of dollars in U.S. weapons that have been flowing into Ukraine, and some House lawmakers in both parties sought to downplay the prospect of aid drying up after November as they emerged Wednesday from a closed-door briefing on Ukraine with administration officials.
"We've seen bipartisan support for Ukraine's fight for freedom," Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., who was part of a bipartisan congressional delegation that went to Kyiv over the weekend, said after Wednesday's briefing with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl; director of operations for the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims II; and other officials.
Still, amid domestic concerns such as inflation, Waltz added that "we constantly need to talk about why this is in our interest."
The last time Congress voted on Ukraine aid -- a $40 billion military and humanitarian aid package approved in May -- 57 House Republicans and 11 Senate Republicans voted against it.
While a minority in their party, those Republicans are digging in with vows to cut off U.S. assistance to Ukraine if their party wins control of Congress in November.
When Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., tweeted earlier this month that "if the Republicans take over the House in 2022 US support to Ukraine will come to a halt," Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., replied that "Ruben is correct."
Democrats have seized on such comments to warn about fractures in the bipartisan support that Ukraine aid has garnered since the start of the war.
"I worry about rhetoric in the Republican primaries, from the MAGA right, from the extreme right," Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., a Marine Corps veteran, said Wednesday, referencing former President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. "It was [Republican Senate nominee] J.D. Vance in Ohio who notoriously said, 'I don't care what happens to Ukraine.' And Tucker Carlson, who's the spokesman for the extreme right, who has queried repeatedly why we're contesting Ukraine with Vladimir Putin."
But Auchincloss also gave "great credit [to] a lot of Republicans in Congress, [who] have stood up to the extreme right and they have said, 'No, this is going to be bipartisan.'"
After failing in its initial goal of quickly seizing Kyiv, Russia has been finding more success in the eastern Donbas region, where it has been wearing Ukrainian forces down with a barrage of artillery fire.
The West has responded by upping its military support for Ukrainian forces with heavier weaponry, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, from the U.S. military, that has been credited with slowing Russia's advance. Most recently, the Biden administration announced another $270 million weapons package last week that included up to 580 Phoenix Ghost explosive drones.
And, after resisting calls from Ukrainian leaders and U.S. lawmakers early in the invasion to provide Ukraine with U.S. military aircraft, Air Force officials have begun expressing more openness to the idea.
Some Republicans are walking a tightrope on the issue of aid. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a former Navy officer who voted against Ukraine aid in May, said Wednesday he would support funding if U.S. military advisers were on the ground in Ukraine ensuring the aid is used properly, something he readily acknowledged risks mission creep.
"We'll have to wait and see what happens," Jackson said when asked whether he expects his party to scale back support for Ukraine if it wins in the midterms. "I think it's important to support them to the extent we can, but we can't spend our entire national treasure in a war over there. There has to be a balance."
Waltz, who is on the side that the Biden administration has moved too slowly and is only helping Ukraine "play for a tie" and "lose slowly," also backed the idea of putting U.S. "logistics planners and operations planners" in Ukraine to provide oversight of the aid.
"This is the largest military aid package since World War II," Waltz said Wednesday when asked whether putting advisers on the ground risks pulling the United States deeper into the war. "There are literally billions of dollars of equipment going in. We're pushing it over the border, and we're essentially blind as to where it's going, who's utilizing it. So to me, it's just responsible oversight."
Mindful of Russia's advantage in a war of attrition and the potential for the West to lose interest in a prolonged conflict regardless of who's in power in Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the United States and its allies to help bring the war to a close soon.
"We can achieve a lot of things before the end of the year, and we can stop this war," Zelenskyy said in an interview with CNN earlier this month.
In the meantime, lawmakers who support arming Ukraine are warning the war is reaching a critical stage that could require an evolution in U.S. support.
"The next phase of this war will require longer-range munitions, more sophisticated drones and a closer connection with advisers provided by the United States and others," Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., said Wednesday. "We don't necessarily need to send advisers into Ukraine. There's ways that we can provide that support. But we need to help the Ukrainians evolve the sophistication of their military as they look at potentially conducting counteroffensives this fall as President Zelenskyy has publicly talked about. That's a different type of operation that requires different types of military training and planning."
-- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel.
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