Ukraine Is Becoming A Dividing Line For GOP Presidential Hopefuls In Wake Of Russian Commander’s Mutiny

Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny against his military superiors and Russian President Vladimir Putin is beginning to make itself felt an ocean away in the U.S. Republican primary race.

Former Vice President Mike Pence visited Volodomyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, NBC News reported Thursday, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Pence’s visit is the highest-profile endorsement of Zelenskyy yet by a Republican presidential candidate and a bid to contrast his stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict with that of the two top candidates, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, both of whom have been much more elusive about publicly choosing sides.

“I truly do believe that now, more than ever, we need leaders in our country who will articulate the importance of American leadership in the world,” .”

Though Trump has made no official remarks specifically about the mercenary leader’s mutiny or Putin’s future, while it was happening, he posted on his social media site that it was “a big mess” and that Putin opponents should be “careful what you wish for.”

“Next in may be far worse!” he posted, including an apparent typo.

Trump has been unwilling to call Putin a war criminal, despite vast evidence of war crimes and atrocities by Russian troops in Ukraine, and has said a peace deal could be brokered by allowing Russia to keep some conquered Ukrainian territory. Before the invasion, he was impeached for trying to withhold aid to Ukraine unless its leaders announced an investigation of Biden, then his Democratic rival for the 2020 election.

DeSantis, meanwhile, has been ambiguous on Ukraine since March, when he said the war — the biggest in Europe since World War II — was a mere “territorial dispute” that was not a vital U.S. interest. He then walked that assessment back after criticism.

Other candidates, however, have been outspoken about the need to help Ukraine defend itself.

“It’s unfortunate, the two leading Republican nominees for president, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, [their] policy on Ukraine is wrong,” said one of the newest GOP candidates, former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, last Sunday on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”

“I wish they would stop fighting with American companies like Disney and be more interested in supporting our allies against attacks, against democracy,” Hurd added, in a slight against DeSantis’ legal battle over the entertainment company’s control of Disney World in Orlando.

Pence and Hurd are by no means alone in expressing support for Ukraine. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and onetime U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a CNN town hall on June 4 that “what we have to understand is, a win for Ukraine is a win for all of us.”

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and another 2024 presidential candidate, said Monday in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he favored giving Ukraine the arms it needs and added that DeSantis and Trump “basically want to give away Ukraine.”

Polling shows declining support among Republicans for Ukraine even as support among the general population has remained relatively robust, and support may even have shot up in the wake of Prigozhin’s mutiny.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the mutiny was over found that 65% of respondents supported arming Ukraine, a hefty 19-percentage-point increase from a poll in May.

Republicans, though, had the lowest level of support, at 56%, compared with independents, 57%, and Democrats, 81%.