European leaders “puff up their chests” and say they back war for as long as it takes in public, but once there’s no journalist in earshot, they become realistic about needing to end the Ukraine war, U.S. Vice President JD Vance has said.
“I don’t care what the Europeans say in public” because it is so completely different in tone to what is said behind closed doors, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Monday evening. Emphasising the importance of getting to peace in Ukraine as soon as possible through the “path” offered by President Trump, Vance explained that while European leaders piled on warlike rhetoric promoting a total victory vision prioritising absolute defeat of Moscow, in private, they recognise peace must come soon.
Stating there simply aren’t enough Ukrainian lives nor Western money to sustain war forever, he said: “It’s useful to step back and ask ourselves, what is the actual plan here? You can’t just fund the war forever, the American people won’t stand for it… Our European friends… are doing a disservice to the Ukrainians because their own populations are saying they don’t want to fund the war indefinitely.”
On the disconnect between the public rhetoric and the real talk away from the cameras, Vance continued: “You have Zelensky, he goes to Europe, and a lot of our European friends puff him up, and they say ‘You’re a freedom fighter, you need to keep fighting forever’… when you talk to leaders in private, whether they are Ukrainian or European when you talk to people in private they will tell you this cannot go on forever.”
He continued: “The craziest part of this… is sometimes you will have European heads of state who in public will puff up their chests and say, ‘we’re in it with President Zelensky for the next 10 years’, and then in private, they will pick up the phone and say, ‘This can’t go on forever. He has to come to the negotiating table’.”
Ultimately, Vance said, giving the American people a vested interest in the security of Ukraine through trade is a greater “security guarantee” than European militaries deploying peacekeepers.
The comments come amid a flurry of activity in Europe as leaders scrabble to discover whether they can indeed fund the war to continue indefinitely alone in the absence of American support. The United Kingdom hosted a major summit in London on Sunday, but it ended without any solid commitments and no new answers.
In a sense, the publicly professed position from European leaders of unlimited support for Ukraine has a clear purpose, even as the war comes to the negotiation endgame state, as it signals to Russia it can’t snatch victory just by pushing a little longer or a little harder. Yet once it becomes such an ingrained element of European self-identity that it actually prevents peace talks from even taking place, it becomes a major obstacle.
The Vice President’s remarks about the real attitudes when the cameras aren’t rolling are somewhat reminiscent of other mask-off moments throughout the war when suppressed feelings appeared to bubble to the surface, to the apparent discomfort of all involved. Particularly pertinent to recent events are the occasions where European allies have suggested to Kyiv they try to appear more thankful for the aid received to help encourage more to be forthcoming.
In 2023, for instance, the United Kingdom counselled Kyiv that it could moderate its demanding rhetoric and show more gratitude to Western powers. This was not for Britain’s benefit, London’s then-defence minister said, but for other countries who might feel slighted by the Ukrainian attitude. He said: “There is a slight word of caution here, which, whether we like it or not, people want to see gratitude…if you’re persuading countries to give up their stocks”.
Just weeks later, the Polish government said it “would be worth” Ukraine considering showing gratitude for the support it received from Warsaw, later adding: “Ukraine should start appreciating what Poland does for it”.
In these cases, Ukraine’s Zelensky showed a thin-skinned side to his personality, with Kyiv calling Poland’s comment “unacceptable” and summoning their ambassador for a dressing down. In the British case, when the Ukrainian ambassador to London expressed his agreement with British comments that Zelensky’s “sarcasm” towards his Western backers wasn’t “healthy”, he was immediately brought home and replaced by Presidential decree.
Jesus Christ is King
