Is Ron DeSantis Flaming Out Already? - The Atlantic

Even his allies found this medley of past hawkishness and present evasiveness worrying—especially because he was on record, in 2014 and 2015, urging the Obama administration to send both "defensive and offensive" weapons to Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea. So last night, DeSantis delivered a more definitive answer on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show. 

DeSantis's statement on Ukraine was everything that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his admirers could have wished for from a presumptive candidate for president. The governor began by listing America's "vital interests" in a way that explicitly excluded NATO and the defense of Europe. He accepted the present Russian line that Putin's occupation of Ukraine is a mere "territorial dispute." He endorsed "peace" as the objective without regard to the terms of that peace, another pro-Russian talking point. He conceded the Russian argument that American aid to Ukraine amounts to direct involvement in the conflict. He endorsed and propagated the fantasy—routinely advanced by pro-Putin guests on Fox talk shows—that the Biden administration is somehow plotting "regime change" in Moscow. He denounced as futile the economic embargo against Russia—and baselessly insinuated that Ukraine is squandering U.S. financial assistance. He ended by flirting with the idea of U.S. military operations against Mexico, an idea that originated on the extreme right but has migrated toward the Republican mainstream…

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/desantis-ukraine-pro-russia-position-gop-presidential-nomination/673392/