DeSantis opposes more aid in Ukraine. Zelensky says that’s short-sighted.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has made no secret of his belief that the United States should not intervene further on Ukraine’s behalf in its ongoing war with Russia.

“We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland,” DeSantis wrote in response to a survey by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

In a new interview with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, writers from The Atlantic asked how he’d respond to such comments from a leader like DeSantis, who is not a 2024 presidential candidate but is expected to launch a bid soon.

Without directly addressing DeSantis, Zelensky said skeptical American leaders must ask themselves: Will Russia really stop at Ukraine?

“If we will not have enough weapons, that means we will be weak,” Zelensky told the magazine. “If we will be weak, they will occupy us. If they occupy us, they will be on the borders of Moldova and they will occupy Moldova. When they have occupied Moldova, they will (travel through) Belarus and they will occupy Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. That’s three Baltic countries which are members of NATO. They will occupy them.”

Then, he said, might come another North Atlantic Treaty Organization nation, Poland.

“The question is: Will you send all your soldiers with weapons, all your pilots, all your ships?” he said. “Will you send tanks and armored vehicles with your young people? Will you do it? Because if you will not do it, you will have no NATO.”

And if the war escalates to that level, and the question becomes less about politics and more about whether the United States will have to send in U.S. soldiers, the voters who currently side with politicians like DeSantis may shift their stances.

Finally, he said, if Russia is allowed to march forth without resistance, what’s to stop another nation, such as Iran, from doing the same?

“When they will try to occupy Israel, will the United States help Israel?” he said. “That is the question. Very pragmatic.”

DeSantis’s recent statements on Ukraine represent a more conservative, isolationist approach than he’d espoused in years past. In 2015, according to CNN, he said he’d been encouraging then-President Barack Obama “to provide arms to Ukraine. They want to fight their good fight. They’re not asking us to fight it for them. And the president has steadfastly refused. And I think that that’s a mistake.”

In 2019, DeSantis tweeted that he would be “the most pro-Israel governor in America.”

“If you look at this whole conflict, to me, the biggest problem has been that Palestinian Arabs have not recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” he said in 2019. “That kind of denialism poisons really everything.”

In the survey response to Fox’s Carlson, DeSantis referred to Russia’s actions in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” and said becoming “further entangled” is not in the U.S.’s “vital national interests.”

His comments got pushback from some Republicans — including from former Vice President Mike Pence and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu — who argued for taking a stand against Russian aggression.

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DeSantis’ response also garnered him an invite from a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs to visit the country to “get a deeper understanding of Russia’s full-scale invasion and the threats it poses to US interests.”