A group of 30 House liberals is urging President Biden to dramatically shift his strategy on the Ukraine war and pursue direct negotiations with Russia, the first time prominent members of his own party have pushed him to change his approach to Ukraine.
A letter sent by the group to the White House on Monday, first reported by The Washington Post, could create more pressure on Biden as he tries to sustain domestic support for the war effort, at a time when the region is heading into a potentially difficult winter and Republicans are threatening to cut aid to Ukraine if they retake Congress.
In the letter, the 30 Democrats led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, call on Biden to pair the unprecedented economic and military support the United States is providing Ukraine with a “proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a cease fire.”
The Democrats are specifically concerned that the United States is not engaging in regular dialogue with Russia as part of its effort to end a protracted war that has caused thousands of deaths and displaced 13 million people. The Biden administration has been adamant that it is up to Kyiv whether and when to negotiate with Russia, arguing that Ukrainians as a free people should decide their fate.
Many Democrats fiercely pushed back on the letter, prompting Jayapal to put out a statement later on Monday “clarifying” the position the progressives outlined in the letter, stressing that they still supported Ukraine and Biden’s commitment to ensure Ukraine is represented in any discussions about its future.
“Let me be clear: we are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion,” Jayapal said. “Diplomacy is an important tool that can save lives — but it is just one tool.”
Some Russia experts say Moscow will only negotiate with the United States, a fellow superpower. The lawmakers say that opening must be seized given the war’s spreading devastation, adding, “The alternative to diplomacy is protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks.”
The lawmakers also noted that Biden himself has said there will eventually have to be a negotiated settlement, though he has never said when.
“Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. It’s their territory. I’m not going to tell them what they should and shouldn’t do,” Biden said in June. “But it appears to me that, at some point along the line, there’s going to have to be a negotiated settlement here. And what that entails, I don’t know.”
The liberal Democrats note that the war’s disastrous consequences are increasingly felt far beyond Ukraine, including elevated food and gas prices in the United States and spikes in the price of wheat, fertilizer and fuel that have created global food shortages, not to mention the danger of a nuclear attack by Moscow.
White House spokesman John Kirby, responding to the lawmakers’ letter, said the administration “appreciates their very thoughtful concerns” but reiterated that the Ukrainians must be central to any diplomatic overtures.
“We’re not going to have conversations with the Russian leadership without the Ukrainians being represented,” Kirby said during a briefing with reporters. “Mr. Zelensky gets to determine — because it’s his country — what success looks like and when to negotiate.”
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Pro-Ukraine voices both in the United States and in Europe often note that any settlement short of Ukraine expelling every Russian troop — and retaking Crimea — would reward a hostile power who invaded a nation unprovoked.
The lawmakers are at pains to differentiate themselves from the Republicans who are also challenging Biden’s approach to Ukraine. Some conservatives are now questioning U.S. aid to Ukraine because of its cost and, in a few cases, voicing apparent sympathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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“We are under no illusions regarding the difficulties involved in engaging Russia given its outrageous and illegal invasion of Ukraine,” the Democrats’ letter states. “If there is a way to end the war while preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America’s responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue to support such a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine.”
The letter was signed by some of the best-known and most outspoken liberal Democrats in Congress, including Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Ro Khanna (Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.).
For now, their position remains a minority in the Democratic Party, which has overwhelmingly supported Biden’s denunciations of Russia and his spearheading of a global coalition to funnel massive support to Ukraine. Biden has framed the conflict as part of his broader view that the world is witnessing a historic confrontation between authoritarianism and democracy.
“There is moral and strategic peril in sitting down with Putin too early. It risks legitimizing his crimes and handing over parts of Ukraine to Russia in an agreement that Putin won’t even honor,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on Twitter. “Sometimes, a bully must be shown the limits of his power before diplomacy can work.”
Not even every member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus joined in Monday’s call for a change in strategy. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) indicated he supported providing Ukraine enough aid and weapons to win the war outright.
The liberals’ appeal for a shift in strategy comes amid some of the most significant U.S.-Russian diplomatic engagement in some time, as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently talked with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, for the first time in months. The two spoke by phone Friday and again on Sunday at Shoigu’s request, Austin wrote on Twitter.
Despite Biden’s success so far in rallying support for Ukraine, he now faces the prospect of cracks in the coalition as Europe heads into a difficult winter, gas prices remain high at home, Putin threatens nuclear actions and both sides appear to be digging in for the long, bl..dy haul.
Biden scrambles to avert cracks in pro-Ukraine coalition
In the United States, most of the challenges to date have come from the right, as some conservatives question spending billions of dollars on the faraway war. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — who would be likely to become speaker if the Republicans retake the House on Nov. 8 — signaled last week that a GOP-led House would oppose more aid to Ukraine.
“I think people are going to be sitting in a recession, and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” he told Punchbowl News. “They just won’t do it.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaking Monday at an international summit on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, downplayed the possibility that U.S. aid to Ukraine would end if Republicans take the House.
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But the liberals’ letter suggests pressure may now start coming from the left as well — albeit for different reasons — creating a political pincer movement that would make it harder for the president to blame opposition to his Ukraine policy solely on Republicans.
When asked how long the United States can be expected to pour billions into the war effort, Biden and his top aides frequently say, “as long as it takes.” But privately, U.S. officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright, suggesting a fundamental change in dynamic would be required if the conflict is to end in the foreseeable future.
For now, Biden’s aides have ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table, saying it is a matter of principle that nations get to decide their own fate. They say they do not know what the end of the war looks like or when it might happen, insisting that it is up to Kyiv.
But a growing number of lawmakers and foreign policy experts are challenging that position, arguing that Russia will not take any negotiations seriously unless the United States is at the table, given its leadership of the West and its investment in Ukraine’s war effort.
“The risk of the strategy is it has no conception of an endgame,” said George Beebe, director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, adding, “It’s a recipe for continuing this war.” The Quincy Institute, which advocates for diplomatic solutions to international conflicts, is one of several groups that endorsed the liberal lawmakers’ letter after seeing an early version.
Behind the liberals’ concern is the reality that the war only seems to be escalating. Russia last month illegally annexed four Ukrainian territories, a move condemned by more than 140 countries at the United Nations. Putin has also repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons, prompting Biden to warn that the world faces the most serious “prospect of Armageddon in 60 years.”
“President Biden said quite accurately that if present trends continue, we could be headed toward the most dangerous crisis we’ve faced since the Cuban missile crisis. The question then is, what do we do about that?” said Beebe, who served as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis team and as special adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. “Simply saying it’s up to Ukraine to decide is abdicating the responsibility America’s leaders have to safeguard the security in all of this.”
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The letter’s signatories indicated that for now they will still support Ukraine aid packages, but it remains unclear whether that would continue if Biden does not soon pursue a diplomatic track.
“We agree with the administration’s perspective that it is not America’s place to pressure Ukraine’s government regarding sovereign decisions,” the letter says. “But as legislators responsible for the expenditure of tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military assistance in the conflict, we believe such involvement in this war also creates a responsibility for the United States to seriously explore all possible avenues.
IMHO there is no contradiction between diplomacy and assistance for Ukraine. Of course the US should talk to Russia. But make sure that the US’s preconditions are also Ukraine’s preconditions.
Also, the most likely path to a long-term protracted war would be if the US and it’s allies were to provide Ukraine with enough aid to prevent it from losing, but not enough to enable it to win.
