Republicans must reject 4 myths about Ukraine and pass much-needed aid

Two years ago, Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, premeditated, full-scale invasion of Ukraine based on several myths, including that Ukraine was not a “real” country and was militarily weak, and that the West was in disarray and would do little to stop him.

Ukrainians quickly destroyed some of these myths, along with much of Russia’s invading forces. Ukrainians preserved their capital, their leadership and regained much of the territory seized by Russian forces in the early days of 2022, albeit at terrible cost. And the West responded by imposing serious (if insufficient) economic sanctions on Russia and providing significant (if somewhat delayed) military assistance to Ukraine.

Other myths, however, linger to this day and new ones have popped up more recently, particularly in the debate in Congress over whether to continue U.S. aid to Ukraine. As Republicans who served in top national security positions, we’re particularly concerned when we hear some of these myths repeated by Republicans.

So here are four myths about Ukraine that you might have heard, and some of the reasons they are untrue.

Let’s start with the big one, the myth that U.S. support will feed an endless war with no possibility of Ukrainian victory.

Ukraine has performed heroically and successfully. It has regained huge swaths of territory seized by Russia starting in February 2022. It should not surprise us that the remaining 18% or so is the hardest to regain.