JD Vance slammed Volodymyr Zelensky’s “absurd” claim that he is unduly siding with Vladimir Putin in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president accused Vance of “somehow justifying Putin’s actions” in a 60 Minutes interview while reflecting on their heated meeting alongside President Donald Trump in the White House in February.
Vance has now responded to Zelesnky’s comments, telling British publication UnHerd: “I think it’s sort of absurd for Zelensky to tell the [U.S.] government, which is currently keeping his entire government and war effort together, that we are somehow on the side of the Russians.”
Vance also told the publication he has condemned Russia’s actions for the last three years, saying that an end to the conflict will require a recognition of both Kyiv and Moscow’s “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,” Vance said.
He added that Zelensky’s rhetoric “is certainly not productive.”
In an interview broadcast Sunday, the Ukrainian president told 60 Minutes that an “altered reality” seems to have taken hold within the Trump administration, with officials peddling Russian talking points about the ongoing war with Ukraine.
“I believe, sadly, Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S.,” he said in the interview filmed in his hometown of Kryvyi Rih, where, last week, 10 adults and nine children were killed in a Russian airstrike near a playground. “This speaks to the enormous influence of Russia’s information policy on America, on U.S. politics and U.S. politicians.”
Zelensky then referenced Vance specifically, adding that Trump’s right-hand man 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,‘” Zelensky added, referring to their showdown at the White House in February.
Trump, meanwhile, raged at CBS in Truth Social posts the same evening the broadcast aired.
“I just finished watching 60 Minutes,” he wrote before launching into a tirade about former Vice President Kamala Harris’ answers in her interview on the show in October.
“Now tonight, with two separate but highly inaccurate stories about ‘TRUMP,’ they’re at it again. The people at CBS Fake News just don’t get it!” he added.
In a follow-up post he said the network is “out of control” partly due to the Zelensky interview.
“They did not one, but TWO, major stories on ‘TRUMP,’ one having to do with Ukraine, which I say is a War that would never have happened if the 2020 Election had not been RIGGED, in other words, if I were President,” he said, adding his chagrin with another story about his apparent designs on taking Greenland from Denmark.
Still stewing over the matter hours later, Trump fired off another post Monday, saying the Russia-Ukraine conflict is “Biden’s war, not mine.”
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