As Israel-Gaza Takes All The Headlines, Has The Western World Forgotten About Ukraine?

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the European Parliament during an extraordinary plenary session in Brussels. Photo by the European Parliament. 

When was the last time you read about Ukraine in the news or mentioned Ukraine in your conversations? It’s been a year and a half since Russia shocked the world by invading Ukraine. Now, the ongoing crisis between Israel-Hamas has taken global attention. Despite being replaced as the center of attention for the Western media, the Ukrainian War has not de-escalated in magnitude and continues to pose a significant refugee crisis. Recently, discussions about aiding Ukraine have resurfaced in foreign policy-making of European and U.S. leaders as the conflict in Israel dominates the headlines. While the media and public have paid less attention to Ukraine, political leaders have not forgotten about it, instead actively addressing this situation alongside the newly proposed agenda of aiding Israel. However, such proposals showed no guarantee of continuous aid to Ukraine. It is time for American and European leaders to assess the Ukrainian situation independently and engage in continuous long-term support for the Ukrainian cause as the war drags on.

In the U.S., as public attention paid to the Ukrainian war wanes, political leaders have taken advantage of this lack of patience to advocate for a decrease in aid toward Ukraine. General Republican support for Ukraine has declined over the past year, and a study by the Pew Research Center shows that Republicans who believe that the U.S. is giving too much aid to Ukraine more than doubled from 17% to 44% from May 2022 to June 2023. It makes sense then, that Republicans are calling for cuts of aid toward Ukraine as the war rages. Some Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump seem to be taking advantage of the public’s deteriorating attention on Ukraine to advance the belief that it’s time to decrease the aid and “put America first.” On the other hand, through conflations with the war in Israel, Biden is advocating for continued aid for Ukraine. Biden drew a parallel between Ukraine and Israel when he stated: “We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win—I refuse to let that happen.” Due to the simultaneous aggression of the Israel-Hamas war, Biden is able to reinforce the necessity of aiding Ukraine on his political agenda. However, the political turmoil between the Republican and the Democratic parties preceding the U.S. presidential election seems to show no guarantees that Ukraine will indeed gain continuous support from the U.S.

While assistance from the U.S. remains uncertain, Ukraine’s biggest supporter, the E.U., has also decreased their support. The European Union has stood on a unified front and provided significant support to Ukraine throughout the early phases of the war. Collectively, it has been the biggest provider of aid to Ukraine and has made sure that the conflict is involved in every major E.U. discussion. Statistics provided by the Kiel Institute show that aid commitments from E.U. members are double those of the U.S, as it includes multi-year aid while the U.S. offers one-time grant. Earlier this year, the EU even decided to boost military aid for Ukraine by another 3.5 billion euros. However, only one-third of the EU-pledged one million rounds of ammunition, which were supposed to be delivered to Ukraine within 12 months, have actually been delivered.

Disagreement has emerged in the E.U. on the issue of unconditional support for Ukraine. Robert Fico, Slovakia’s newly appointed president, stands firmly against providing more funds for Ukraine. He announced that he would “no longer supply Ukraine with arms'' as he added, “the war in Ukraine is not ours, we have nothing to do with it.” Compared to robust calls for support to Ukraine at the beginning stages of the war, the E.U. has become less amenable to providing guaranteed aid to Ukraine. As the most persistent aid supporter, their absence will be detrimental to the Ukrainian cause, giving no guarantee that the war will end in favor for Ukraine.  

In recent months, the Israel-Hamas war has pulled the attention of many European leaders and has become the major agenda of the E.U. parliament. Thus, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, had to capitalize on this new war and engage his European supporters again in his cause. “If the world unites whenever someone takes [a] woman hostage and condemns the children of another nation, terror will have no allies,” he claimed at the NATO parliamentary assembly. Zelensky is actively drawing parallels between the attacks in Israel and his own country, as he aligned with his European partners on the issue of Israel-Hamas and raised awareness of the conditions of his own country. 

While another war happening in a different corner of the world may recoup some of the attention Ukraine once had, it can likewise distract attention and resources to the Ukrainian cause. Kytylo Budanov, Chief of Military Intelligence in Ukraine, believes that if the Israel-Hamas war prolongs, “there will be certain problems with the fact that it will be necessary to supply weapons and ammunition not only to Ukraine.” Indeed, there is only a certain amount of foreign aid Ukraine’s Western allies can allocate, and the occurrence of another war is going to divert financial support.

The lack of guarantee for Ukrainian aid under the current political climate in the U.S. and E.U. is the ultimate barrier to the success of the Ukrainian cause. On-ground operations prove that the war has reached a stalemate where fighting is expected to drag on. The Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian armed forces claims that Russians are gaining an advantage as each day passes. He further emphasizes that while Russia has superiority in weaponry technologies, Ukraine needs “something new” in order to “break the deadlock.” Therefore, there is a pressing urgency that Ukraine needs to acquire more—and better—military aid. Max Boot, an expert on national security at the Council of Foreign Affairs, argued that despite the Western world providing what Ukraine is asking for, the fact that  supplies have recently slowed down greatly hinders an end to the war. More weaponry support to Ukraine is essential to break the current stalemate, since Russia, on the other hand, has been gaining more military aid, notably arms supplies from North Korea.

In all, as the war between Ukraine and Russia drags on and the world sees no end in near sight, Ukraine is expecting long-term support from its Western allies. Yet as attention to Ukraine wanes among the public and other issues dominate the world stage, the future of support for Ukraine seems less promising. It is crucial that the E.U. and American leaders advocate for continued support to Ukraine. Alongside their active engagement with Israel and Palestine, the Western world should actively engage with Ukraine in order to put this prolonged humanitarian crisis to an end.  

Susie Su (GS ‘25) is a staff writer at CPR and a student majoring in political science and minoring in evolutionary biology and human species.