WWhen Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, President Joe Biden set three goals for the U.S. response. Ukraine’s victory was never one of them. The phrase the White House used to describe its mission at the time – supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes” – was intentionally vague. This also begs the question: how long does it take to do what?
“We were deliberately not talking about territorial settings,” says Eric Green, who at the time served on Biden’s National Security Council, overseeing Russia policy. In other words, the United States has made no promises to help Ukraine reclaim all the lands occupied by Russia, and certainly not the vast territories of eastern Ukraine and the peninsula of Crimea conquered during their initial invasion in 2014. The reason was simple, Green says. : In the opinion of the White House, this was beyond Ukraine’s capabilities, even with solid assistance from the West. “It wasn’t going to be successful in the end. The most important goal was for Ukraine to survive as a sovereign, democratic country, free to continue its integration with the West.”
This was one of three goals set by Biden. He also wanted the United States and its allies to remain united and insisted on avoiding direct conflict between Russia and NATO. Looking back on his leadership during the war in Ukraine – which will certainly shape his legacy as a statesman – Biden achieved all three of these goals. But success under these limited conditions brings little satisfaction, even to some of his closest allies and advisors. “It’s unfortunately the kind of success that you don’t feel good about,” Green said in an interview with TIME. “Because there is so much suffering for Ukraine and so much uncertainty about where it will ultimately land.”
For Ukrainians, disappointment with Biden has been building throughout the invasion, and they have expressed it more and more openly since the US presidential elections ended in Donald Trump’s victory . In a podcast released in early January, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States had not done enough under Biden to impose sanctions on Russia and to provide Ukraine with weapons and security guarantees. “With all due respect to the United States and the administration,” Zelensky told Lex Fridman, “I do not want the same situation that we had with Biden. I ask for sanctions now, please, and weapons now.
The criticism was unusually pointed and seems all the more remarkable given the scale of support the United States has given Ukraine during Biden’s term – $66 billion in military aid alone since the Russian invasion of February 2022, according to the US State Department. Combine that with all the aid approved by Congress to meet Ukraine’s economic, humanitarian and other needs, and the total comes to about $183 billion as of last September, according to Ukraine Oversight, a government watchdog. US government created in 2023 to monitor and report on all this aid.
Yet Zelensky and some of his allies insist that the United States has been too cautious in its resistance to Russia, particularly when it comes to granting Ukraine a clear path to membership. NATO. “It is very important that we share the same vision for the future of Ukraine’s security – within the EU and NATO,” Ukrainian President said during his latest visit to the White House in September.
During that visit, Zelensky handed Biden a detailed list of demands that he called Ukraine’s “victory plan.” In addition to calling for an invitation to join NATO, the plan urged the United States to strengthen Ukraine’s position in the war with a massive new influx of weapons and authorization to use them deep within of Russian territory. Biden announced at the time that he would not run for reelection, and Ukrainians hoped his lame duck status would allow him to make bolder decisions, in part to secure his legacy in foreign affairs. “For us, his legacy is an argument,” a senior member of Zelensky’s delegation in Washington told TIME. “How will history remember you?”
The calls received a mixed reception. On the issue of Ukraine joining NATO, Biden would not budge. But he approved a number of measures that the White House had long rejected as too dangerous. In November, the United States authorized Ukraine to use American missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory. And in January, the Biden administration imposed tough sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, including the “ghost fleet” of tankers that Russia uses to export its oil.
Although these decisions fell short of what Zelensky wanted, they helped Biden argue in the final foreign policy speech of his term that the United States had achieved its goals in defending Ukraine. However, he was careful not to promise that Ukraine would regain more territory, or even survive until the end of this war. Russian President Vladimir Putin “has so far failed to subdue Ukraine,” Biden said in his Jan. 13 State Department speech. “Today, Ukraine is still a free and independent country, with the potential – the potential for a bright future. .”
The future that Zelensky and many of his compatriots envision is one of Russia’s defeat. But in rallying the world to fight, Biden has made it part of his own goals that defending Ukraine against Russia is not the same as defeating Russia. It is therefore not surprising that this objective remains far from being within Zelensky’s reach.
