Americans’ support of Ukraine may be fading
Nearly half of Americans (47%) now say Washington should urge Kyiv to negotiate a peace deal as soon as possible, up from 38% in July, a new poll shows.
And 48% of Americans believe Washington should support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” down from 58% in July, according to the survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
“As the fighting drags into winter, the overall U.S. public is now divided on whether the United States should support Ukraine as long as it takes,” the authors say.
Republicans have led the decline in support. A smaller majority of Republicans now support the United States giving military aid (55%, down from 68% in July and 80% in March) and economic assistance (50%, down from 64% in July and 74% in March). Democratic support has held relatively steady. In October, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy said Republicans won’t write Ukraine a “blank check” if they take control of the chamber, which they will in January.
Also Tuesday:
• Ukraine Intelligence Directorate chief Kirill Budanov dismissed talk that Russia could be running out of missiles after weeks of overwhelming strikes targeting Ukraine cities. Russia has enough weaponry for “several more massive missile strikes,” he said.
• The U.S. secretly modified the advanced HIMARS rocket launchers it gave Ukraine so they can’t be used to fire long-range missiles into Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a Biden administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The HIMARS have been a crucial component of Ukraine’s battlefield successes in recent months.
Russian bases take hits as war expands beyond Ukraine
Fire erupted at a Russian airport along the Ukraine border after an apparent drone strike, and a similar assault narrowly missed a depot 50 miles from the border as Ukraine appeared intent on bringing the war to Russia.
The strikes came one day after Russian authorities said a truck exploded at one Russian airfield, killing at least three people, and a drone struck bombers at another airfield. The bases, in Russia’s Saratov and Ryazan regions, are about 300 miles from the Ukraine border. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the strikes.
Russian companies ordered to reject price cap on oil
Moscow will ban Russian companies from selling oil to countries that operate within the framework of the West’s new embargo and price cap, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Tuesday. Novak spoke a day after an embargo on maritime Russian oil shipments to the European Union and several other nations took effect, along with a $60-a-barrel price cap for EU ships transporting oil to other nations or EU companies financing or insuring those shipments.
Russian military bloggers launch broadsides of their own
Anger over the failure to prevent attacks on Russian bases far from the Ukraine border has outweighed praise for the war on Ukraine among the influential Russian military blogging community, a Washington-based think tank reports. The Institute For the Study of War says the bloggers chastised the military for the security breakdown because the bases were obvious targets.