4 days Ago By HuffPost UK
JD Vance has slapped down Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s concerns that the US administration is favouring Russia . The Ukrainian president told CBS’s 60 Minutes that Vance was “somehow justifying” Vladimir Putin’s war and urged Donald Trump to visit his country before pressing ahead with further peace talks. The new US administration has falsely blamed the conflict, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine , on Zelenskyy on multiple occasions .
Trump’s team has also hinted that Ukraine may have to agree to concessions – such as giving up some of its occupied land – in order to reach a peace deal. But, speaking to the UnHerd website, Vance claimed it was “absurd” for Zelenskyy to believe the US is “on the side of the Russians”. He said: “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.
” Vance went viral last month as he humiliated Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, accusing him of campaigning for the Democrats, and trying to “litigate” an end to the Ukraine war “in front of the American media”. Speaking to UnHerd, the vice president remarkably claimed Zelenskyy’s rhetoric “is certainly not productive” amid America’s push to end the conflict. The vice president added: “I’ve also tried to apply strategic recognition that if you want to end the conflict, you have to try to understand where both the Russians and the Ukrainians see their strategic objectives.
“That doesn’t mean you morally support the Russian cause, or that you support the full-scale invasion, 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.” The Ukrainians are trying to return to their 1991 borders, as agreed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, while Russia is trying to grab as much of Ukraine’s land as possible. Trump vowed to end the war within his first 24 hours into his second term as president.
Almost three months later, and Russia just launched its deadliest attack of 2025 on Ukraine – a move the US president has written off as a “mistake”. Related..
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