Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said on Sunday that the United States needs to accept that Ukraine must \u2018cede some territory\u2019 to Russia and that American leadership must ensure the U.S. is \u2018not writing more blank checks\u2019 to fund Kyiv\u2019s forces ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s visit to Washington, D.C., this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We can\u2019t make strategic decisions based on stark morality tales. We have to figure out what is in America\u2019s best interest,\u2019 Vance said Sunday during an appearance on CNN\u2019s \u2018State of the Union.\u2019 \u2018We have a food crisis that\u2019s getting worse because of the prolonged war in Eastern Europe. We have an energy crisis that\u2019s threatening to swamp multiple allied governments in Western Europe. What\u2019s in America\u2019s best interest is to accept Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians, and we need to bring this war to a close. When I think about the great human tragedy here, hundreds of thousands of eastern Europeans, innocent, have been killed in this conflict. The thing that\u2019s in our interest and in theirs is to stop the killing.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018On the Ukraine question in particular, everybody knows everybody with a brain in their head \u2026 knows that this was always going to end in negotiation,\u2019 Vance added. \u2018The idea that Ukraine was going to throw Russia back to the 1991 borders was preposterous. Nobody actually believed it. So what we\u2019re saying to the president and really to the entire world is you need to articulate what the ambition is. What is $61 billion going to accomplish? That $100 billion hasn\u2019t reached.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Ukraine is functionally destroyed as a country. The average age of a soldier in the Ukrainian army right now is 43. That\u2019s tragic. That\u2019s older than me. I\u2019m 39,\u2019 Vance told host Jake Tapper, who later disagreed with the \u2018age graphic\u2019 but told viewers he himself is 54 years old. \u2018If this thing goes on a little bit longer, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier is going to be older than you,\u2019 Vance continued. \u2018And then a year later, could be Wolf Blitzer. That is a tragedy. What does it look like?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regarding America\u2019s role in the conflict, Vance said, \u2018We are getting to a place where we\u2019re going to be functionally on the hook to pay for Ukrainian pensioners to rebuild the entire country. We need to bring the killing to a stop. And that\u2019s what American leadership should be doing, not writing more blank checks to the war.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy will meet with President Biden at the White House on Tuesday as the administration steps up the pressure on Congress to provide billions more in aid to Kyiv in its war with Russia. The visit is intended \u2018to underscore the United States\u2019 unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia\u2019s brutal invasion,\u2019 the White House said in a statement Sunday. \u2018As Russia ramps up its missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, the leaders will discuss Ukraine\u2019s urgent needs and the vital importance of the United States\u2019 continued support at this critical moment.\u2019<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy\u2019s office confirmed that he had accepted Biden\u2019s invitation. He also has been asked to speak to a meeting of all senators.<\/p>\n
Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package for wartime funding for Ukraine ($61.4 billion) and Israel, along with other national security priorities, but the request is caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security. Congress already has allocated $111 billion to assist Ukraine, and Biden\u2019s budget director, Shalanda Young, said in a letter this past week to House and Senate leaders that the U.S. will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, which would \u2018kneecap\u2019 Ukraine on the battlefield.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s time to cut a deal that both sides can agree to,\u2019 Young said Sunday.<\/p>\n
The stakes are especially high for Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during two TV interviews Sunday, given that \u2018we are running out of funding\u2019 for the Ukrainians. \u2018This is a time to really step up because if we don\u2019t, we know what happens. Putin will be able to move forward with impunity and we know he won\u2019t stop in Ukraine.\u2019<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said on Sunday that the United States needs to accept that Ukraine must \u2018cede some territory\u2019 to Russia and that American leadership must ensure the U.S. is \u2018not writing more blank checks\u2019 to fund Kyiv\u2019s forces ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s visit to Washington, D.C., this week.\u00a0 \u2018We can\u2019t make <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}