First, Ukraine is looking squarely toward the future and is deeply, almost viscerally, committed to becoming part of Europe. Second, despite mixed and sometimes hostile signals from Washington since the change in administration, Ukrainians continue to look to the United States with striking gratitude. Third, Ukraine’s advocates in the United States must do a far better job at home explaining why Ukraine’s fight matters—not as an act of generosity, but as a matter of American national and economic security.
That failure of explanation, more than public opposition, is the greatest long-term risk to sustaining U.S. support.
1. Ukraine’s future is European—and Ukrainians are acting like it
What struck me most in Kyiv was not exhaustion or fatalism—though both were present—but how aggressively Ukrainians are preparing for the future, even as they live with rolling blackouts, air raid sirens, and a grinding war of attrition.
Instead of talking about getting through the winter, in my numerous conversations with officials, business leaders, and civil society actors, it became clear that they were focused on what it actually takes to join Europe: courts that treat people fairly, less corruption in daily life, government services that are accessible online, clear rules for starting and running a business, and an economy that can create reliable jobs over time—reforms most countries tackle slowly and in peacetime.
This outlook reflects a broader regional shift that Americans often underestimate. Europe’s political and security center of gravity has moved eastward toward countries that understand Russian coercion not as an abstraction, but as lived experience. Ukraine increasingly sees itself—and is increasingly seen by others—as part of this emerging European core.
2. The vast majority of Ukrainians are grateful to the United States—and Americans are more supportive of Ukraine than U.S. politics suggest
When it comes to the United States, the dominant emotion I encountered in my conversations with Ukrainian officials, civil society, and business leaders was not anger at American politics, but a wary gratitude mixed with realism. Ukrainians follow Washington’s internal turmoil closely—often more closely than many Americans do. Their greatest fear is not sudden abandonment, but inconsistency: the sense that U.S. commitments could shift every two or four years with this or that electoral outcome, undermining long-term planning and deterrence.
For Kyiv, this is not theoretical. It shapes daily decisions about energy infrastructure, military planning, and economic recovery. Yet despite a persistent misconception in Washington that public support for Ukraine has collapsed, the data tell a more nuanced, and more reassuring, story.
HarrisX polling highlighted by the Atlantic Council and others shows that roughly 6 in 10 Americans continue to support U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including military aid. Majorities still view Russia as the aggressor, express deep distrust of the Russian government, and oppose forcing Ukraine into territorial concessions simply to end the war quickly. While attitudes fluctuate with headlines, support has proved far more resilient than many Ukraine supporters in the United States expected.
What Americans lack is not sympathy or instinctive alignment; it is sustained attention. Inflation, housing costs, immigration, crime, and electoral politics dominate daily concerns. Ukraine rarely ranks near the top not because Americans oppose helping, but because they assume the issue is being managed competently in the background.
The public is distracted, not hostile—and that distinction matters. Americans are unlikely to mobilize proactively in support of Ukraine, but they will likely be highly reactive to failure, especially if it appears avoidable or rooted in political dysfunction. The most visible demonstration of public support would likely come only if the situation deteriorated badly, at which point the strategic and economic damage would be far harder to reverse.
Polling suggests that where support softens is not on whether Ukraine deserves backing, but on whether Americans fully understand why it matters to them. The lack of an explanation creates risk, especially when public distrust of Russia is obscured by signals from the White House that suggest ambivalence where little exists. Vacuums tend to get filled—and not always with facts.
3. Why Ukraine matters to Americans, in plain terms
What U.S. supporters of Ukraine have not explained clearly enough to the U.S. public is also the simplest reality: Ukraine’s war is testing the rules and norms that have long underpinned American prosperity.
For decades, the U.S. economy has benefited from a relatively predictable global order: secure trade routes, stable borders, enforceable rules, and alliances that deter major wars. That stability reduces risk, lowers costs, encourages investment, supports American jobs, and allows the United States and its partners to shape global standards for trade, technology, and finance.
When that system holds, most Americans barely notice it. When it breaks down, though, the consequences arrive quickly—often first in economic form. If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, it will not stop there. It will continue probing NATO, testing U.S. resolve, and exploiting uncertainty wherever it can. Markets understand the implications of this—higher risk, higher costs, and lower confidence—even when politics obscures them.
Americans experienced a preview after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Energy prices surged. Food costs rose as grain and fertilizer markets were disrupted. Shipping and insurance costs climbed, feeding inflation throughout the economy. Interest rates followed, affecting mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and small businesses.
But price spikes are only part of the story. A less stable world also means slower growth; delayed investment in energy infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, cross-border trade, and the long-term projects that depend on confidence and cheap capital; fragile supply chains; and greater volatility in retirement savings. Governments spend more reacting to crises and less investing at home. Over time, this erodes economic security even without dramatic shocks, hitting Americans directly in the pocketbook.
And the costs compound. A world where Russian aggression goes unpunished is one where risk becomes structural. Energy, food, finance, and shipping become tools of leverage rather than engines of growth. Americans do not just pay more at the checkout counter; they inherit a weaker, more uncertain economic future.
International stability is an economic asset, not an abstraction. Supporting Ukraine will preserve a system that keeps the United States prosperous—and helps it avoid a far more expensive reckoning later. If Ukraine’s fight for the freedom to choose its own future is not enough to compel U.S. action, the fact that the American economy has a direct stake in the outcome should be.
The choice before the United States
Supporting Ukraine is often framed as a moral gesture or a distraction from “real” domestic concerns. In reality, however, it is directly connected to those concerns.
Far from being insulated from global instability, the affordability pressures Americans feel—at the gas pump, the grocery store, the bank—are shaped by it. The fact that support for Ukraine has remained resilient suggests Americans seem to understand this instinctively. But resilience is not the same as durability. Support grounded in instinct rather than explanation is vulnerable, especially in a polarized environment where confusion is easily weaponized.
While Americans are not likely to suddenly turn against Ukraine, U.S. policymakers could mistake public silence for passivity and allow the war in Ukraine to continue to metastasize. By the time Americans feel the consequences directly and public outrage becomes visible, it will be too late to undo the consequences.
Ukraine is not asking the United States to fight its war. It is asking Americans to recognize that U.S. security and prosperity are bound up in the war’s outcome. If the United States wants a world governed by rules rather than coercion, predictability rather than chaos, it cannot afford to step back now.
Ultimately, remembering why Ukraine matters is as much about Ukraine as it is about whether the United States still understands how its own power and prosperity work.