EU alarmed as Vance's VP candidacy signals shift in Ukraine policy

- This is a disaster for Ukraine - said one of the high-ranking EU officials in an interview with Politico, commenting on the selection of the Senator from Ohio, J.D. Vance, as a candidate for vice president. - We need to quickly end the war in Ukraine so that America can focus on the real problem, China - Vance said in the latest interview.

"While Europe had already panicked at the prospect of a second Trump presidency and its impact on American foreign policy, Vance's addition to the Republican Party's list of candidates has raised further questions about the commitment of a potential new administration to Ukraine and the transatlantic alliance," writes Politico.

Vance clearly expressed his views on Ukraine. In 2022, he told Steve Bannon in an interview: - I have to be honest with you, I really don't care what happens to Ukraine.

When Vance first appeared at the Munich Security Conference in February 2024, he told Politico that the US must reassess its support for Ukraine and left the meeting with the Ukrainian delegation and other senators.

Since then, his rhetoric has become more severe. The 39-year-old senator criticised Europe's dependence on the United States for defence spending, particularly criticising Germany for not meeting the NATO goal of allocating 2 per cent of GDP to defence spending.

In his first interview after being selected as a candidate for vice president of the US, Vance suggested that the current administration could lead to nuclear war. - We need to quickly end the war in Ukraine so America can focus on the real problem, China - he said.

- We spent £160 billion. What is the goal? What do we want to achieve? Is there a risk of escalation to nuclear war? Because there is if we have fools running foreign policy, of which we currently have many in Washington - Vance said in an interview with Fox News commentator Sean Hannity at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.

He responded this way to his views on the war in Ukraine, which deviate from most of the party mainstream.

- I think President Trump promised to go there and negotiate with the Russians and Ukrainians and bring it all to a quick end, so America could focus on the real problem, China. It is the biggest threat to our country, and we are completely distracted - he added.

Vance also supported a tough policy against Iran and said it should be "hit hard." He also accused Joe Biden of "doing nothing to help our ally Israel" and instead prolonging the war and making it harder to achieve lasting peace.

In the interview on Fox, the senator from Ohio - who converted to Catholicism in 2019 - also softened his previous stance on abortion, supporting the one expressed by Trump, i.e., to leave abortion policy to individual states.