Facing upheaval at home, Biden seeks to keep NATO military alliance behind Ukraine

• With oil and gas costs climbing and a low job approval rating, it may be tough for President Biden to convince NATO allies to send heavy weapons to Ukraine.
• Americans have largely supported the war effort. But that’s not necessarily because they approve of the way Biden is handling the situation.
• Experts say pessimism over high fuel and food costs could lead to falling support for Ukrainian aid.

MADRID –  President Joe Biden had hoped to use this week’s NATO summit as a platform to plead his case for maintaining support for the war in Ukraine.

But domestic upheaval over abortion rights, gun violence and economic turbulence threaten to overshadow Biden’s message at home about the urgent need to send Ukraine more weapons to protect itself from Russian attacks.

Those developments could distract U.S. voters as the Russian offensive into Ukraine enters its fifth month and is quickly fading from American attention spans. 

The question: Can Biden succeed? 

“The war here in Europe seems farther away and further down the list of things that Americans expect their leaders to be focused on,” said Brett Bruen, director of global engagement at the White House in the Obama administration. “Unfortunately, Ukrainians are not going to see the same kind of attention, not going to see the same kind of resources that we’ve been looking at over the last several months.”