CHICAGO, United States – Moments after officially accepting the Democrats’ nomination for president of the U.S. on the last night of the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris reminded voters foreign policy may not be completely sidelined in the 2024 election.
“As president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies,” Harris firmly said with a raised voice to an erupting crowd of rowdy Democrats.
The vice president's remarks late on Aug. 22, light on policy but consistent in support of Ukraine’s pushback against Russia’s full-scale invasion, came after her sprint of a campaign has received criticism for minimally addressing foreign policy concerns.
“Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met President (Volodymyr) Zelensky to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade,” she said.
“I helped mobilize a global response, over 50 countries to defend against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s aggression,” added Harris, currently vice president in outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration.
The rapid ascent of Harris’s nomination as the Democratic party’s nominee after Biden stepped aside and the nature of her highly condensed and vibe-focused campaign has disappointed some of her supporters wanting to hear policy plans for Ukraine, including members of the host city’s large Ukrainian population. Discussion of Ukraine was far from absent during the largely ceremonial four-day coalescing around Harris, but it remained concentrated on the convention’s sidelines amongst expected advocates for Ukraine.
The thousands who marched just blocks from the convention in protest of the Biden administration's support of Israel in its war in Gaza even failed to reach the spotlight of the convention’s center stage. However, while both wars remained unavoidable and were mentioned in the slew of remarks from Democratic leaders carrying the metaphorical torch from Biden to Harris, the convention did not clarify how a Harris administration would treat Ukraine differently from the Biden White House, if at all.
With the convention now over and nearly 70 days until election day, voters will soon hear Harris’s policy plans for Ukraine, Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Kyiv Independent. However, that is far from meaning it will suddenly become an issue driving Americans to the polls or swaying undecided voters.
“People vote based on local issues, Americans have never been that focused on foreign policy and national security policy,” Rep. Smith said. “She (Harris) is very clearly going to carry on President Biden’s policy of defending and arming Ukraine.”
While also light on indicators of future policy toward Ukraine, the Democrats’ official party platform that was confirmed on the convention’s first night served as a reminder that the party sees the Biden administration’s support of Ukraine as an asset to the Harris campaign but not a commitment in need of a detailed policy roadmap nearly a month into the campaign.
As the longest-serving woman in Congress, Rep. Marcy Kaptur said insight into Harris’s policy toward Ukraine can be gleaned from her supportive record in the Senate and as Vice President.
Rep. Kaptur, the co-founder and co-chair of the bipartisan Ukraine Caucus, hopes a Harris administration would mean progress toward NATO membership for Ukraine. But in the meantime, the Democratic party remains united around “freedom,” Rep. Kaptur said, echoing the Harris campaign’s catchphrase and implying freedom equates to support for Ukraine.
After three days of next to no mention of Ukraine from the primetime stage, it took three back-to-back veterans and a Republican for Ukraine to receive repeated mention.
“Trump plans to do Putin’s bidding by abandoning Ukraine and walking away from our NATO allies,” Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jason Crow, who earlier in the week met with members of Chicago’s Ukrainian community, said to the convention.
Senator Mark Kelly, the retired Navy pilot who many Ukrainian advocates hoped would be Harris’s running mate, followed Rep. Crow.
Putin is testing American strength, Sen. Kelly told the crowd, resurfacing Trump’s February remarks that Russia should “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries. Trump has no response to Putin and the war in Ukraine, Sen. Kelly added.
The convention’s loudest roar over Ukraine came on the last night when former GOP official Adam Kinzinger quoted Trump’s running mate JD Vance saying “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” Then, leaning into the Harris campaign’s categorization of the GOP opposition as “weird,” Kinzinger said Trump is “weirdly obsessed” with Putin.
The U.S. support of Ukraine remains a dividing issue between Republicans and Democrats. Nearly two-thirds of Democrats believe the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine, according to Pew Research data from July, while only about a third of Republicans and Republican leaners agree with that.
The few but busy Ukrainians at the DNC
While Democrats remain mostly united around U.S. support of Ukraine, the convention provided a multi-day engagement outside of Washington for various individuals and groups in support of Ukraine to gain backing from the less easily convinced progressive wing of the party.
After rallying U.S. support for Ukraine in Michigan and Texas, Ukrainian lawmaker, Oleksandra Ustinova, attended the convention with the hope President Biden uses his remaining months to further cement his legacy in Ukraine.
“It’s not enough to get the support that we have now, we need to change the policy from ‘Ukraine stopping Putin’ or ‘Ukraine fighting the war’ to actually Ukraine defeating Russia,” Ustinova told the Kyiv Independent.
Meeting with Democrats in Congress and the United Ethnic Women for Kamala Harris on the sidelines of the convention, Ustinova’s message was that by lifting restrictions on American weapons striking inside Russia, Harris could inherit not only an easier conflict in Europe but a winning plan should she win in November.
Along with Rep. Kaptur, Ustinova was one of many Ukrainians to speak at a United Ethnic Women for Kamala Harris gathering in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village.
On the sidelines of the DNC, members of Chicago’s Ukrainian Village shared concern with the decline in American interest in Ukraine. This concern isn’t without warrant, only a third of the American public says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “major threat” to U.S. interests, a drop from nearly half shortly after the full-scale invasion, Pew Research found.
Mariya Dmytriv-Kapeniak, the president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee, organized the ethnic women’s gathering and the Ukrainian Americans displaying the few Ukrainian flags outside the convention.
A resident of Chicago’s Ukrainian Village since 2000 after leaving Ternopil in western Ukraine, Dmytriv-Kapeniak – like many who spoke with the Kyiv Independent – was disappointed with the lack of mention Ukraine received during the convention.
“What is the strategy? Why is the Democratic Party not saying anything?” she said. A lifelong Republican, she is one of many in Chicago’s Ukrainian community of nearly 300,000 who first voted for a Democrat with the onset of Donald Trump in 2016 to only be further offset by Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Trump’s running mate selection of Ukraine-skeptic JD Vance.
While supporting Harris and Walz, Dmytriv-Kapeniak hopes their policy platform toward Ukraine will soon become known.
“They have to be clear about Ukrainian victory, you cannot hide words,” Dmytriv-Kapeniak said. “She’s not saying enough, not doing enough.”
Visiting Chicago for the U.S. expansion of his humanitarian aid for Ukraine, Serhiy Prytula, the comedian turned politician and founder of Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation, who was also at the DNC, had a few messages for Democrats.
“We’ll fight with or without your support, without we’ll just bleed more,” Prytula told the Kyiv Independent.
Regardless of who is elected in November, staffers determine policy, Prytula said, adding that he doesn’t consider whether Harris would be more supportive of Ukraine than Biden, but rather how Ukrainians can work with both parties.
Scott Cullinane, the director of government affairs at Razom for Ukraine, a nonprofit advocating for Ukraine in Washington, was one of the few Democrats engaging in discussions about Ukraine throughout the convening. In addition to faster weapons delivery to Ukraine and lifting restrictions on American weapons, Cullinane’s messages to Democrats included closing sanction loopholes and encouraging Western companies to exit Russia.
“Everyone is either a supporter of Ukraine or a supporter of Ukraine who doesn’t know they’re one,” Cullinane said. ”That’s how we have to approach it.”
Amongst the several individuals crisscrossing Chicago’s convention centers to advance Democrats’ unification around Ukraine, a delicate balance was at play. An attempt – not dissimilar to the weekslong gratification expressed for Biden’s torch passing – to not criticize the current administration's Ukraine policies too much to the point of harming Democrats’ election odds and elevating Trump, the unanimous point of unity across the convention.
Anders Åslund
