Ukrainians Fear What J.D. Vance Could Do as Vice President

A fresh wave of worry spread through Ukraine on Monday as news from the Republican National Convention crossed the Atlantic. Senator J.D. Vance, a diehard opponent of American aid to Ukraine, had been selected as Donald Trump’s running mate, and the Ukrainians realized what his rise could mean for their war against Russia.

“That’s bad,” one fixture of Kyiv’s foreign policy circles wrote in a text message, adding a screenshot of Vance’s past claims in the media—all unsubstantiated—that Ukrainian officials might use American assistance to “buy a bigger yacht.” Another former official under President Volodymyr Zelensky put it this way: “Now Ukraine must be especially careful about its words and actions.”

Given Vance’s record and his rhetoric about Ukraine, it’s far from clear that Zelensky can do much to win him over. The bad blood between the two men goes back at least to the fall of 2023, when Vance began a concerted effort to block U.S. aid for Ukraine.

That October, with the outbreak of war in Israel, the first-term Senator from Ohio said it was clear the U.S. had “overcommitted resources and attention to Ukraine,” and it needed to cut its losses. “A new aid package only threatens to set our readiness back even further,” he wrote in a column for The Hill.

About two weeks later, Ukraine’s top military commander announced in an interview with The Economist that the war had reached a stalemate, and there would likely be “no deep and beautiful breakthrough” against Russia’s defensive lines. The news from the front led Vance to adjust his message. He began urging Kyiv to accept the loss of land in exchange for peace, effectively freezing the front line and leaving Russia in control of the territory it had occupied.

Zelensky refused to accept such an outcome. “We would just leave this wound open for future generations,” Zelensky told TIME in an interview last fall. “Maybe it will calm some people down inside our country, and outside, at least those who want to wrap things up at any price. But that’s a problem, because we are left with this explosive force. We only delay its detonation.”

Instead Zelensky kept pushing for more assistance. In December, he traveled to Washington to argue for a fresh package of U.S. aid worth over $60 billion, which had been stuck in Congress for months. Even among Republican critics of the aid on Capitol Hill, Vance stood out for his unwillingness to budge. He rejected the argument that most of the money would go to U.S. arms manufacturers, thus benefitting the U.S. economy. “War is not a business venture,” he wrote in a letter to the Washington Post in December, "and the United States is more than just an economy.”

Two months later, as the aid remained stuck in Congress, Zelensky shot back during an interview with CNN. “I’m not sure he understands what’s going on here,” he said when the interviewer asked him about Vance’s opposition on Ukraine. “We don’t need any rhetoric from people who are not deeply in the war.” If Vance wanted a proper understanding of the stakes in Ukraine, Zelensky invited him to visit the front line. Out there, he added, it might become clear that “millions of people will be killed” without American assistance.

Vance never accepted the invitation. He did not even agree to meet with Zelensky when both men attended a security summit in Munich this winter. “I didn’t think I would learn anything new,” Vance explained. His efforts to block the aid for Ukraine ultimately failed. The package passed with large majorities in the House and the Senate this spring.

But now, as Trump’s running mate, Vance’s influence over U.S. policy will only grow, and that carries "enormous risks for Ukraine in 2025," says Oleksandr Kharebin, a political analyst in Kyiv who advised Zelensky's presidential campaign. "With a vice president like that, Trump's plan to force peace terms on Ukraine is starting to look like a confirmed strategy" for his second term.

Others in Kyiv put on a brave face, hoping Vance’s policies might not match his rhetoric if he and Trump win in November. “Campaigning is almost always different from policies,” says Iuliia Mendel, who served as Zelensky’s press secretary during the first two years of his presidential tenure. “A lot will also depend on Ukraine’s professionalism.”

Zelensky’s office did not respond to questions about Vance on Tuesday. But one senior official in his government said that, regardless of the outcome of the November elections, Ukraine will need to win the support of anyone who occupies White House. “We can’t bet on the individuals,” the official said, asking not to be named in discussing a sensitive issue of foreign policy. “We just have to respect the institution."