The news this week that Republicans in the US Senate had voted together to block a supplemental funding bill that included provision for $61 billion for Ukraine was greeted with predictable dismay in Kyiv and glee in Moscow.

Ostensibly this was a bid to force the White House into prioritising more spending on securing the Mexican border. However it also reflects a real sense on the part of some within the GOP that the United States is either throwing good money after bad in maintaining support for the conflict, or continuing to subsidise a backsliding Europe that really ought to be taking the lead on this crisis. After all, while Europe as a whole has committed more funds to Ukraine – $143.4 billion to the USA’s $111 billion – the level of support is very variable (Norway tops the league, devoting 1.6% of its GDP, while France, Spain and Italy all lag, at below 0.1%). More to the point, many of the specific military capabilities Ukraine needs can only really be met by the Americans.

If Europe is forced to increase its support for Ukraine, then that is likely to prove divisive and controversial.

So far, Congress has earmarked $111 billion for assistance to Ukraine: $67 billion in military support, $27 billion in economic and civil support and $10 billion in humanitarian aid. However, according to a letter sent to Congressional leaders by Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, all of this – apart from around 3 per cent of the military aid – had been spent by mid-November. Her blunt warning that ‘we are out of money to support Ukraine in this fight’ fell on deaf ears, though.

Olena Zelenska, wife of the Ukrainian president, used an interview with the BBC to say that her people were in ‘mortal danger’, as ‘if the world gets tired, they will simply let us die.’ Meanwhile, Russian TV pundits crowed at what one described as a ‘rare moment of good sense in Washington’ that would ‘change the course of the conflict.’

It is certainly true that without continued western support, the Ukrainian economy and war effort would be in the direst of situations. While it is unlikely that Moscow could achieve its original goal of taking the whole country – as Ukrainians would continue to resist with whatever means at their disposal – its capacity to force an ugly and unfair peace on Kyiv, likely annexing the south-east of the country, would be that much greater.

However, for now this still seems unlikely. Although still subject to the usual last-minute horse-trading, there is growing, albeit still cautious optimism that a European Commission scheme to provide €50 billion in budgetary support for Kyiv over the next four years will be approved next week. Besides, while the Biden administration has taken a knock back, the likelihood is that there will be a new Ukraine aid package in the new year and, in the meantime, there is enough support still in the pipeline from both Europe and the USA to keep Ukraine going. For many or most of those senators voting nay, this was a political gambit to force the White House to address the immigration issue and deliver another blow to a rather shaky administration, rather than a genuine resistance to arming Ukraine.

However, it does highlight the centrality of US politics in this campaign. Setting aside the question of what might happen if Donald Trump is elected next year, any wobbles in Washington have significant effects across the Atlantic. If Europe is forced to increase its support for Ukraine, then that is likely to prove divisive and controversial. More to the point, there are European countries which might secretly welcome an excuse to back away from a war that now looks set to roll into 2025 at the very least.

With Hungary’s Viktor Orbàn lambasting Ukraine as ‘one of the most corrupt countries in the world’; with Polish truck drivers continuing their blockade of the border; and eurozone economies anticipating lacklustre economic growth in 2024, there are certainly reasons for some nations to be questioning current policy. As a senior official from the External Action Service (the EU’s ‘foreign ministry’) admitted, ‘the fiction that everyone is committed to Ukraine “as long as it takes” is getting thinner. No one wants to be the first [to break ranks], but if Washington wavers, then that will be the excuse they need.’

At last week’s G7 summit, President Zelensky warned that ‘Russia hopes only for one thing: that next year the free world’s consolidation will collapse. Russia believes that America and Europe will show weakness, and will not maintain support for Ukraine.’ It is by no means a probability, but the odds on Vladimir Putin’s bet, that an authoritarian Russia can outlast a democratic West, have certainly shortened.