Protecting Ukraine is not "vital" for the United States, likely presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said, underscoring that the top two Republican contenders don't see Russia's invasion of Kyiv as a foreign policy priority.
DeSantis, the 44-year-old Florida governor, said the United States "has many vital national interests" but that "becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them."
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The remark aligns DeSantis, who is considered all but certain to join the 2024 race, with former president Donald Trump in opposing the establishment Republican policy of backing Kyiv.
DeSantis was responding in writing late Monday to Fox News, which asked major Republican presidential candidates for their views on what is certain to be one of the most pressing foreign policy issues in next year's election.
He was asked whether opposing Russia in Ukraine was a vital American national strategic interest.
His answer demonstrates the sharp fissure within a party that has traditionally pushed for powerful US engagement on the global stage, as establishment Republicans are challenged by a growing isolationist contingent.
"The Biden administration's virtual 'blank check' funding of this conflict for 'as long as it takes,' without any defined objectives or accountability, distracts from our country's most pressing challenges," DeSantis added.
Trump, responding to the same question on whether US backing for Kyiv was vital for Washington -- said: "No, but it is for Europe. But not for the United States."
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Establishment Republicans have long argued that defending Ukraine and halting further Russian expansionism is crucial to US interests and not just European security.
"Reports about the death of Republican support for strong American leadership in the world have been greatly exaggerated," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told the Munich Security Conference last month.
"We are committed to helping Ukraine, not because of vague moral arguments or abstractions like the so-called 'rules-based international order' but rather because America's own core national interests are at stake."
The position DeSantis has staked out contrasts with his more hawkish record on Ukraine while he was in Congress, when he supported military aid for Ukraine after Moscow's annexing of the Crimean Penisula in 2014.
He also backed a resolution pressuring then-president Barack Obama to provide weapons to help Kyiv "defend their sovereign territory from the unprovoked and continuing aggression of the Russian Federation."
Many military experts and foreign policy analysts believe President Vladimir Putin is gambling that the Russian will to prosecute the war will outlast US determination to back Ukraine.
"Putin's main hope has rested on Donald Trump returning to office in 2025," Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine wrote in February.
"Now he has a second option should Trump falter in the primary. The odds that Putin will end the war just got longer."
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