In April, it was clear a bill to provide Ukraine with another $61 billion in weaponry and aid to fight against invading Russians would pass the Senate, its final hurdle before reaching President Joe Biden’s desk.
It had already passed the House on a massive 311 to 112 vote and was only hours away from passing the Senate by a similarly overwhelming 79 to 18 tally . The bill’s success was all but foreordained.
But Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), now the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, still railed against it on the Senate floor, comparing the rush to help Ukraine defend itself from an unprovoked Russian assault to the U.S. rush to invade Iraq. He recalled the 2005 image of triumphant U.S. lawmakers holding ink-stained fingers in the air to show solidarity with Iraqis holding free and fair parliamentary elections.
“What I am saying is not that the people of Iraq were bad or that they were bad for voting in their elections. What I am saying is the obsessive focus on moralism — ’democracy is good, Saddam Hussein is bad; America good; tyranny bad’ — that is no way to run a foreign policy,” Vance said.
Russia’s breaking of the post-World War II consensus against redrawing borders by force has been a big reason Ukraine has garnered support from the U.S. and across the West. But Russia’s sheer ruthlessness in the conflict has been another.
Russia stands accused of committing war crimes , including executing civilians in occupied areas, using rape as a tool of war and attacking civilian targets like power plants and shopping malls . The International Criminal Court at the Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin .
While all the votes in April against the aid package came from Republicans, Vance’s opposition was the most full-throated and implacable. That he, of all the potential candidates, could be be advising Donald Trump and be a heartbeat away from the presidency has sent spasms of worry for Ukraine across the political spectrum.
“Of all the people that were on that list, if you were picking somebody purely on support for Ukraine, JD Vance probably would not have been at the top of that list. But here we are,” said Doug Klain, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), a House Republican in a swing district, told HuffPost the “overwhelming majority” of his colleagues in the House still support Ukraine, as does he.
“You have China, Russia and Iran working together in a coordinated effort to undermine and destabilize the United States in the free world. And so obviously, these discussions will take place in due time, but I will continue to advocate for support for Ukraine,” he said.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a spending subcommittee chairman and proponent of aid to Ukraine, said he was less worried about disagreeing with Vance on Ukraine than about the possibility of America becoming more isolationist.
“The larger concern I have is if America, which has always been the proven leader when the world is aflame, begins the process of ignoring what’s going on in other places,” he told reporters at the U.S. Capitol Monday.
“That’s not who we are, that’s not what we’ve been and I don’t think it’s going to be beneficial to the world for us to do that,” he said.
Vance’s view — that American foreign policy under President Joe Biden is based on a naive view of the world the U.S. is unprepared to and should be unwilling to enforce — is more sophisticated than other critiques from Republican opponents of Ukraine aid, such as the false belief the United States has given more support to Ukraine than Europe has .
But that has not kept Vance from indulging sometimes in false or misleading talking points. In December, while being interviewed by former White House advisor and federal convict Steve Bannon, Vance said, “There are people who would cut Social Security, throw our grandparents into poverty. Why? So that one of [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy’s ministers can buy a bigger yacht?”
The idea U.S. aid has been siphoned off to buy a yacht or yachts for Zelenskyy or one of his ministers was spread by a now-defunct website that called itself DC Weekly and has been repeatedly debunked.
Vance’s office has also occasionally composed memos laying out reasons to oppose aid. One written during the aid package debate said the bill would give Democrats ammo to impeach Trump if, as a second-term president, Trump tried to make Ukraine bargain with Russia by withholding aid.
But Vance’s most frank statement — and one the Biden campaign made sure to publicize after Vance was picked — was one the senator made in 2022 on right-wing news outlet Real America’s Voice.
“I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other,” he said.
In Ukraine, officials have tried to paper over the potential impact of a Trump presidency, even as Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán has said Trump told him he will not send a penny to Ukraine if reelected. Trump has mocked Zelenskyy as the world’s “greatest salesman” because of the aid his country has gotten so far, and this year’s GOP platform doesn’t even mention Ukraine by name.
“As for U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan on ending the war, the general things are clear to me. If Donald Trump becomes president, we will work. I am not afraid of this,” Zelenskyy said in Kyiv on July 15 , before Vance’s selection.
Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian parliament member from Odesa, told HuffPost, “Ukrainians respect the choice of the American people. So if the Americans elect Trump, we will work with Trump.”
But the Vance pick did worry some there, he said.
“Most Ukrainians realize that the United States is our biggest and most important ally, and many things in the war against Russia depend on the United States. That’s why many people are really concerned about Vance’s statements about Ukraine,” he said.
Klain said the significance of Vance’s pick for Ukraine would depend on what role he plays in foreign policy. “I think it is a perfectly reasonable thing to believe that it had more to do with domestic politics and Trump’s vision for what he wants to do domestically than foreign policy,” he said.
Goncharenko, who travels to the U.S. periodically and has met with lawmakers of both parties, was calm about the pick.
“I know him personally and he struck me as a pragmatic and very intelligent person,” he said.
The Ukraine-U.S. relationship is a mutually beneficial one, Goncharenko said, and that was why he thought good relations would continue “under any circumstances.”
“And it also means that nothing will affect the willingness of Ukrainians to continue the fight,” he said.
Igor Bobic contributed reporting.
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