Why is Ukraine coming up so much in American politics?
It’s a safe bet that most Americans would struggle to identify Ukraine on a map.
People at the upper echelons of U.S. politics, from Paul Manafort to Hunter Biden, also have Ukraine ties.
Ukraine keeps popping up in American politics for two reasons, say a number of foreign policy experts:
- It’s a proxy battle between Russia and the West.
- The United States tends to not prioritize this — until it has to, and by then it has become a big issue.
Here’s more about why it feels like everyone is suddenly talking about Ukraine.
A really brief history of Ukraine in the U.S. news
Ukraine and Russia became independent countries in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since then, Ukraine has been at the center of the tug-and-pull between the West and the East.
In 2014, Russia quickly and rather easily took over Crimea, a peninsula previously under Ukraine rule. It was a remarkably aggressive move. President Barack Obama responded with sanctions and by kicking Russia out of a group of world leaders, the Group of Eight. But overall, the United States was caught off guard and didn’t respond forcefully, said Susanne Wengle, who studies the post-Soviet region at the University of Notre Dame.
There have been regular skirmishes ever since in Ukraine, and the United States has consistently supported pro-Western groups — support that transformed into military aid after Crimea.
In 2019, Trump called up Ukraine’s newly elected president — ironically, an anti-corruption reformer — and threatened to hold up a huge package of military aid for the country if it didn’t dig into his political rival, Biden. The quid pro quo that House impeachment investigators demonstrated eventually got Trump impeached by the House (and acquitted by the Senate).
Now, Russia is massing troops on the border of Ukraine and looking like it wants to invade the country, perhaps in response to the United States’ and West’s increased support for Ukraine. And Biden is trying to decide how to respond.
How Ukraine has become a proxy battle between the United States and Russia
As Russia has regained its military might, it’s tried to flex that by expanding its territory and pushing back against what it views as Western encroachment. No prize is as tantalizing for Russia as Ukraine.
It’s a country of particular historic importance to Russia, a strategic buffer between Russia and Europe, and it’s linguistically and culturally close to Russia, said Maria Snegovaya, who studies Russia from George Washington University.
For the United States, Ukraine is a country in Russia’s sphere that has a real chance of breaking free, said Andrew Lohsen, a former State Department official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In a region where you don’t have too many countries that still seem like they can achieve this transition to a market economy and an open society, Ukraine is one of the few that remain in play,” he said.
U.S. presidents generally want Ukraine to succeed, said Jenny Mathers, an international politics expert at Aberystwyth University in Britain: “In Ukraine, the U.S. sees a nation struggling to make its own decisions and chart its own path, and that is a very powerful story for Americans.”
That’s created this tug of war between Russia and the United States on Ukraine’s future. “It’s a country that’s caught between Russia and the West,” said Wengle, of Notre Dame.
But Russia cares a lot more about Ukraine
In recent years, the United States has shifted its foreign priorities over to China. That was one of the top reasons Biden defended ending the war in Afghanistan — to focus on the rise of China.
As a result, several experts we spoke to say that the United States has largely let contentions with Russia fall by the wayside. Ukraine is probably not the top of any incoming president’s foreign policy list, said Emily Holland, an assistant professor of Russia Maritime Studies the Naval War College. “It was largely ignored,” she said.
Russia tries to take advantage of the distracted stance to advance its own self interests — often doing so by using Ukraine.
Several experts we spoke to pointed out that now is as good a time as ever for Russia to make its move: Biden is weak at home, his poll numbers are down and the nation is focused on the coronavirus, the economy and upcoming midterm elections. And Biden just yanked America out of a war, with big political consequences for him.
Expect Ukraine to keep being in the news
Holland said Ukraine is known for being remarkably corrupt, and there are a lot of Ukrainian oligarchs with money to advance their interests in Washington.
Both Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, have ties to the country. Manafort was an adviser to the prime minister of Ukraine and pro-Russian forces there. And Trump tried to allege a quid pro quo between Vice President Biden’s actions in Ukraine and Hunter Biden’s work on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
Lohsen, formerly of the State Department, views Russia’s encroachment on Ukraine as the beginning, not the end, of its attempts to expand in a way that makes the United States take notice. And that means Ukraine will probably continue to be in the news.
“Ukraine is the symbol of a country that is trying to choose its own destiny, and it is caught in the middle between competing geopolitical forces,” he said.