Why the fate of Ukraine still matters to America

On Friday, an extraordinary exchange occurred between the president of the United States and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. Voices were raised as President Trump and Vice President Vance accused Zelensky of disrespecting our president and the American people.
This was just the latest, albeit most dramatic, sign of the rapidly deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Ukraine.

Another occurred on Feb. 24, three years after Russia invaded Ukraine, when the U.S. voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression and demanding return of all Ukrainian territory.

The resolution passed by a wide margin, and this country found itself on the losing side, along with Russia, Belarus, Hungary, Nicaragua, Niger and Sudan, among others.

The vote marked just one of a series of things the Trump administration has done to signal a new posture toward Russia and Ukraine. As the administration pursues its own peace initiative and rethinks America’s role in Europe, as well as considers how to respond to what happened on Friday, we would do well to consider why the fate of Ukraine still matters to our country.

Recall that the Ukrainians did nothing to provoke the attack, other than do what any sovereign nation would do. They have fought valiantly against overwhelming odds since then.

At first Americans were galvanized by the Russians’ blatant violation of international law and by the unexpected battlefield success of Ukraine. Blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, were everywhere. Commentators compared Zelensky to Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II, rallying his nation and setting an example for the world.

America embraced the Ukrainian cause as our own and the Biden administration made clear that this nation would stand with that beleaguered nation “as long as it takes.” The State Department put it this way: “The United States, our allies, and our partners worldwide are united in support of Ukraine in response to Russia’s premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified war against Ukraine.  We have not forgotten Russia’s earlier aggression in eastern Ukraine and occupation following its unlawful seizure of Crimea in 2014.” 

The United States, it said, “reaffirms its unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters.”

That all seems like a long time ago.

Now, as the bloody conflict in Ukraine enters its fourth year, it is not surprising that people have grown war weary. On Feb. 14, the Pew Research Center released the results of a poll showing that “30% of American adults say the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine in its war with Russia. That’s up slightly from 27% in November 2024, just after the U.S. presidential election.”

Only 22 percent thought that we are not providing enough support. In 2022, that number was 42 percent, with only 7 percent saying “too much.”  

Three years is a long time to hold any nation’s attention for a far-away war of attrition. That may explain why the new administration wants to turn the page on Ukraine and sideline alliances in favor of big power politics.

As the Washington Post puts it, “The president is spurning a post-World War II international system built to block global aggressors, embracing far older ideas of allowing military powers to build regional spheres of influence and exert dominion over their neighbors. He appears to be turning back the clock to a time in world history when countries with the biggest militaries constructed empires, demanded tribute from weaker nations and expanded their territories through coercion.”

So why fuss about what is going on more than 5,000 miles from our shores?

Let’s start with a simple moral proposition. As former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black explained “great nations, like great men, should keep their word.” 

I don’t think most Americans recall what we told Ukraine 30 years ago, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The U.S. was very worried about what would happen to nuclear weapons left on the territory of former Soviet Republics like Ukraine. Dismantling Ukraine’s nuclear capacity and transferring weapons to Russia was an American priority.

But, as Brookings’s Steven Pifer notes, “The process (of Russian negotiations) with Ukraine proved … difficult, as Kyiv sought to achieve particular objectives before giving up what was then the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.” As talks stalled, U.S. involvement proved crucial in breaking the logjam.

In December 1994, “leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation met in Budapest, Hungary, to pledge security assurances to Ukraine in connection with its accession to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons ... as a non-nuclear-weapons state.”

The so-called Budapest Memorandum included the following: “The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE [Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe] Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

Professor Aldo Borda of the University of London is right to say that “the meaning of the security assurances was deliberately left ambiguous.” But he quotes Pifer, a former U.S. diplomat who participated in the talks that led to the memorandum, who explains, “it was understood that if there was a violation, there would be a response incumbent on the US and the UK.”

Pifer contends that “there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and […] that would include lethal military assistance.”

Another thing Americans today may not understand is that almost all the money we spend to aid Ukraine stays right here.

“Funds that lawmakers approve to arm Ukraine,” explains The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen, “are not going directly to Ukraine but are being used stateside to build new weapons or to replace weapons sent to Kyiv from U.S. stockpiles. ... Almost 90 percent is going to Americans.”

“At a time,” he says, “when both major parties are competing to win working-class votes and strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base, our military aid to Ukraine does exactly that — it is providing a major cash infusion into factories across the country that directly benefits American workers. It is also creating jobs and opportunities for local suppliers, shops, restaurants and other businesses that support the factories rolling out weapons.”

Finally, every day that the fighting goes on in Ukraine is another day that the Russian military is being “severely degraded and humiliated without a single active duty American military casualty, using only 5 percent of our U.S. defense budget and less than 1 percent of our total government spending.”

So when we support Ukraine, we fulfill our commitments, strengthen our economy and weaken a geopolitical rival. I hope that even after Friday's unfortunate meltdown, progress toward peace can continue. And if that were not enough, we should recognize that Ukraine is fighting a just war. And as new the administration works to end the conflict, it should keep in mind why the fate of Ukraine matters here in America.

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. His views do not necessarily reflect those of Amherst College.

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