On Fox News with Sean Hannity, Vice President JD Vance blamed the Biden administration for “throwing money and ammunition” at Ukraine after it was invaded by Russia in February 2022 and claimed that “the only guy in town” who has a strategy to end the war is President Donald Trump.
Hannity interjected that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had only accepted Trump’s minerals deal, things would be different.
[Note: The Trump administration paused all aid to Ukraine on Monday after not securing a minerals deal with Zelensky during his visit this week in Washington, DC. Vance insists that Zelensky “insulted” Trump and refused his “plan for peace.”]
Emphasizing the transactional nature of Trump-era diplomacy, Vance told Hannity: “If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually insure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine. That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
J.D. Vance mocks European nations considering the deployment of peacekeeping forces to Ukraine, dismissing the idea as “20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”pic.twitter.com/Blw4vfzHtw
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) March 4, 2025
The “random” countries that have pledged continued support for Ukraine are NATO members which, as Vance says, have not been at war for decades — a fact often hailed as one of the great achievements of NATO, an alliance established in the aftermath of two devastating world wars that devastated Europe.
Vance’s statement struck a sensitive nerve, as NATO nations have sent military troops into wars in the the last “30 or 40 years,” including the longest war ever fought by the U.S. military, which began when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in a post-911 effort to protect the U.S. homeland from terrorist attacks originating there.
While the U.S. sent by far the most troops into Afghanistan, NATO countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Canada also sent troops.
[That war in Afghanistan, fought for 20 years before a U.S. withdrawal saw the Taliban swiftly regain power, is generally viewed as a failure by Democrats and Republicans alike, costing the U.S. trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. Boasting about having fought it recently is “not the flex” Vance thinks it is, as one commenter opines.]
According to NATO: “For nearly 20 years, NATO Allies and partner countries had military forces deployed to Afghanistan under a United Nations (UN) Security Council mandate. NATO Allies went into Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, to ensure that the country would not again become a safe haven for international terrorists to attack NATO member countries. Over the last two decades, there have been no terrorist attacks on Allied soil from Afghanistan.”
British troops, killed supporting America's war in Afghanistan through our support under NATO Article 5.
— Grumpy Badger (@GrumpyBadger5) March 4, 2025
But JD Vance says that this never happened.
He never even said thank you. pic.twitter.com/vh0emFmQfT
Vance’s statements dismissive of the power, participation and history of European allies have stirred anger among NATO nations, some of whose citizens are resurfacing and sharing photos of coffins of British and Canadians troops who were killed “supporting America’s war in Afghanistan through our support under NATO Article 5.” As one replied: “But JD Vance says that this never happened. He never even said thank you.”
(The latter comment presumably reflects Vance’s demand, during the contentious recent White House meeting, that Zelensky say “thank you” more often to the United States and to the Trump administration.)
Not even so much as a thank you from @VP. What a tool… pic.twitter.com/68EkLYJTkq
— Charlie Newquist🇺🇸🦅🇺🇦 (@CharlieNewquist) March 4, 2025
In February, NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Shekerinska stressed the importance of continued support to Ukraine during a ceremony marking three years since Russia’s invasion.
The former Defense Minister of Northern Macedonia, which became a NATO member in 2020 while Donald Trump was POTUS, noted that in 2024, NATO Allies pledged 40 billion euros of security assistance to Ukraine, but actually delivered over 50 billion, over half of which came from European Allies and Canada.
Shekerinska also noted “the importance of continuing support in order to bring a just and lasting end to the aggression against Ukraine, emphasizing the need for robust security guarantees and the vital role that Allies will need to play.”
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