Former U.S. President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump selected Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate on July 15. The 39-year-old conservative, whose fame ballooned after the publication of his 2016 memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," was announced as Trump's pick for vice president on the first day

Vance is one of Trump’s most vocal supporters and an outspoken critic of U.S. aid to Ukraine.

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Vance has said that it would be “completely irresponsible” for Ukraine to join NATO. He has also argued for the U.S. to focus solely on preventing Chinese expansion, even if that means sacrificing sovereign Ukrainian lands to Russia.

“Any peace settlement is going to require some significant territorial concessions from Ukraine, and you’re gonna have a peace deal, because that’s the only way out of the conflict,” Vance said in February.

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  • @WombleEnglish
    3•4 months ago

    As Charap and Radchenko show, the reality is a bit more complicated. Johnson didn’t directly sabotage a ceasefire deal in spring 2022; indeed, there was no deal ready to be signed between Russia and Ukraine. The two sides hadn’t agreed on territorial issues, or on levels of military armaments permitted after the war. Ukraine’s position during the negotiations necessitated security guarantees that western states were hesitant to provide. And there were domestic political questions inside Ukraine related to Russian demands about “denazification” to contend with.

    So no, they hadnt agreed to revert to the feb-22 borders, that was still a matter of contension, and Russia were pushing for Ukrainian disarmament post war (i.e. surrender).

    My dispute wasnt that there were attempts at negotiation, obviously there were; Macron in particular made a big show of pushing for them. But the idea that Russia ever offered status-quo ante-bellum (as they suggested) is ridiculous.

    • @jordanlundMEnglish
      2•4 months ago

      Correct, but I’m also going to lean on the side of Cablemonster either mis-remembering the facts, or mis-understanding the facts, rather than mis-representing the facts.

      The Guardian article I found is presented as a fact check, so the idea that Boris Johnson killed a peace deal is clearly something that’s been floating around in the zeigeist.

      • @WombleEnglish
        2•4 months ago

        Fair enough, personaly I find it hard to give the benefit of the doubt to people from that instance when it comes to topics like this.

        • @jordanlundMEnglish
          1•4 months ago

          Well, I have the benefit of having heard the same thing about Boris Johnson and just not bothering to run it down until now, so it doesn’t surprise me that someone could hear it and uncritically parrot it. :) I mean, that happens online ALL the time!