Vice President JD Vance slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s comments on “60 Minutes,” calling them “absurd” and “not productive.” Zelenskyy brought up Vance during the CBS interview, recalling their explosive February meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. He said “Russian narratives” were “prevailing” in the room and accused Vance of defending Russia, calling it a “shift in reality.”
“First and foremost, we did not launch an attack to start the war,” Zelenskyy said. “It seems to me that the vice president is somehow justifying Putin’s actions. I tried to explain, you can’t look for something in the middle. There is an aggressor, and there is a victim. The Russians are the aggressor, and we are the victim.”
In an interview with British outlet UnHerd, Vance responded directly to Zelenskyy’s criticism. “I think it’s sort of absurd for Zelenskyy to tell the [American] government, which is currently keeping his entire government and war effort together, that we are somehow on the side of the Russians,” he said. Vance added the Ukrainian leader’s rhetoric was “certainly not productive.”
Vance defended his stance by citing previous comments denouncing Russia’s invasion. He explained that understanding both sides’ goals was necessary for any realistic end to the war. “That doesn’t mean you morally support the Russian cause, or that you support the full-scale invasion,” he said. “But you do have to try to understand what are their strategic red lines, in the same way that you have to try to understand what the Ukrainians are trying to get out of the conflict.”
Taylor Van Kirk, Vance’s press secretary, backed him up in a statement to Fox News. “The Vice President has repeatedly said that this war was not justified to begin with and is the product of Joe Biden’s weakness and incompetence,” she said. “Instead of mischaracterizing Vice President Vance’s rhetoric, President Zelenskyy should be focused on bringing this conflict to a peaceful conclusion. His comments are counterproductive to the goal of achieving peace for his country.”
Van Kirk also highlighted past examples of Vance criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin, including statements he made in 2022 as an Ohio Senate candidate. Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that same year, the year Vance was elected to the Senate.
“The only responsible thing to do is try to bring this conflict to an end before it gets to the point of nuclear weapons,” Vance told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum in 2022. “You can believe, as I do, that Ukrainians are brave people and that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy, without pushing the United States to the brink of nuclear war.”