Dozens of U.S. officials and lawmakers attended the annual Munich Security Conference at the ornate Hotel Bayerischer Hof. Vice President Harris addressed the conference on Friday afternoon; Zelensky spoke on Saturday morning, after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and before Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Vance arrived on Saturday morning, as did several other later-arriving members of Congress. Seeing as how he would be addressing the conference during a panel discussion about U.S.-Europe relations on Sunday morning, one might think Vance would be curious about what European and Ukrainian leaders had to say.
But despite being on the premises, Vance chose not to attend bipartisan Senate delegation meetings on Saturday with Zelensky, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg or Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, several senators who did attend told me. Vance said afterward, “I didn’t think I would learn anything new.”
More likely, Vance didn’t want to learn new facts that might contradict his talking points about Europe and Ukraine, which he rolled out on Sunday in predictable fashion. The senator and his MAGA allies have been trying to stop the United States from providing additional aid to Ukraine, hiding behind arguments largely based on distortions of fact. To believe these arguments, one must ignore what European allies and Ukrainians are saying — as Vance did by ditching these meetings.
For example, during his Sunday panel discussion, Vance argued that the United States can’t continue to support Ukraine because the U.S. defense industry doesn’t produce enough munitions and the U.S. military must conserve resources for other regions. “You don’t win wars with GDP or euros or dollars. You win wars with weapons, and the West doesn’t make enough weapons,” he said.
In fact, the funding legislation Vance is opposing contains billions of dollars to increase U.S. weapons production capacity and to replenish U.S. weapons stocks. Vance is thwarting the solution to the very problem he is complaining about, then pointing back to that problem to justify his real objective: abandoning Ukraine.
“If we appropriate this money, the capacity would ramp up, the supply lines would get hot and J.D. Vance would be proven wrong,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who attended the Munich meetings, told me.
Vance claimed the Ukrainians have no strategy to win, and, therefore, the United States should try to cut a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Russia has incentive to come to the table right now,” Vance said. Regarding the aid package, Vance said that even if it does go through, “that is not going to fundamentally change the reality on the battlefield.”
What is already changing the reality on the battlefield — in Russia’s favor — is politicians such as Vance blocking U.S. aid. The Ukrainian town of Avdiivka fell to Russian forces as the conference was ongoing. But if Vance had shown up to the meeting with Zelensky, he would have heard the Ukrainian leader’s strategy firsthand.
“Zelensky pushed back pretty strongly against the assertion that this is an endless war,” Schatz told me. “He explained his theory of victory. It’s compelling. It just lacks ammunition.”
Zelensky told the Senate delegation how congressional delays were harming not only Ukrainian forces’ ability to fight but also their morale. “Ukrainian guys in muddy trenches, in between being shot at, are saying to each other, ‘Have you heard anything about the U.S. Congress? Is the money coming? What’s going on here?’” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told me.
The right-wing neo-isolationist crowd laments that the U.S. government no longer functions well enough to accomplish big things such as helping Ukraine. Meanwhile, they are doing everything possible to cause more dysfunction, Whitehouse told me.
“We’re not the America we used to be because of the behavior of people with that point of view,” he said. “It’s a self-proving phenomenon, and if they stopped it, we would be the America we used to be again.”
Vance purports to be delivering tough love to Europeans, but his audience is more likely in the United States, where he is plainly auditioning to be former president Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate. Vance went all the way to Munich to troll the Europeans and insult the Ukrainians to make his MAGA buddies cheer, which they did. He is also trying to shift blame away from Trumpist Republicans for the Ukrainian deaths their obstructionism is causing.
At least those lawmakers who showed up at the meetings heard the truth from U.S. allies: Europe is sacrificing a lot to help Ukraine. And abandoning Ukraine now will only lead to more deaths. Ukrainians are not going to stop fighting, whether we help them or not, because they are fighting for their survival.
Despite his best efforts, Vance was unable to avoid being confronted by one Ukrainian lawmaker in Munich. Vance claimed during his panel that Putin prefers President Biden over Trump in November’s election, as Putin recently remarked. During the audience question portion, Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko pushed back on Vance’s naiveté to his face with a simple reminder: “Don’t forget, Putin always lies.”
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