Why does JD Vance keep trying to help Russia win the war with Ukraine

Marco Rubio is the only American other than Henry Kissinger to serve as secretary of state and national security adviser at the same time, but has largely been absent from high-stakes diplomacy on Ukraine.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff negotiated the recent pro-Russia 28-point plan to end the war, and his chief White House advocate was Vice President JD Vance. Working to help Russia win aligns with Vance’s far-right worldview, and with Trump an aging president who has never prioritized politics, the VP’s views will remain influential.

Witkoff basically repackaged a Russian-written plan, even coaching the Russians on how to talk to Trump and undermine the upcoming US meetings with Zelensky.

Trump officials reportedly slowed this push for a domestic corruption scandal in Ukraine, thinking it would force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to swallow unfavorable terms. But instead of sending Rubio or another State Department official, the Trump administration had US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a friend and classmate of Vance’s at Yale Law, deliver the plan to Ukraine as an ultimatum.

It didn’t work. When the details came out, European countries were shocked, and with their support, Ukraine responded with a reasonable counteroffer that Russia unsurprisingly rejected because Putin is looking for conquest, not peace. Allegedly, Rubio tried to say that it was a Russian wish list that the United States was considering, not an American proposal, before he recovered and said that it was an American plan after all. Evidence emerged that Witkoff basically repackaged a Russian-written plan, even coaching the Russians on how to talk to Trump and undermine upcoming US meetings with Zelensky, and the effort fell apart.

But Vance will likely continue to look for ways to get Ukraine to surrender because that has always been his approach to war. His internet commentary constantly shows sympathy for Russia’s cause, such as by asserting that Russian victory is inevitable no matter what the United States does. Sometimes he uses blatant lies, such as claiming that the position of Americans who support Ukraine is “Let’s send your children to die in Russia” (no American troops were deployed to fight in the war, and virtually no American lawyers sent them).

In a late February meeting with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office that was supposed to announce a US-Ukraine mineral mining arrangement, Trump and Vance ambushed the Ukrainian president, with the VP absurdly blaming Zelenskyy for the war Russia started and pursued, and castigating the Ukrainians as “ungrateful.”

Vance marinates his mind in the extreme right-wing inclination of X (née Twitter), the website Elon Musk has turned into a swamp of misinformation and propaganda, and engages with users who are no longer marginal driving him. He follows just over 1,000 accounts – a fairly standard amount for active users – and at various times, several of them have been outright supporters of Nazism and fascism.

And as a recent quickly reversed X-rule change revealed, some prominent right-wing accounts are foreigners posing as Americans.

The online right pushes a white nationalist conspiracy theory called the “Great Substitute,” which several terrorists have cited as motivation for their attacks, including one targeting Latinos at a Walmart in Texas, and another targeting Jews at a synagogue in Pennsylvania. Musk also pushes that extremist theory, and manipulates X’s algorithm to promote it. Vance has pushed variations on it for years, including as vice president, trying to put an intellectual spin on the racism of the paranoid channel. While Trump operates and uses the online right, Vance is actually one of them.

And the online right loves Russia, seeing Putin as a champion of the culture war. For them, Russia’s “male” military should only defeat Ukraine’s “woke” Western-backed “them/them” military, both to advance the far-right cause and to validate their worldview.

Trump has always viewed Putin and Russia positively, and has shown sympathy for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. When Russia invaded in 2022, Trump publicly stated that it was “sophisticated” and “genius.” After becoming president again, he changed US policy in a pro-Russian direction, cut off military aid to Ukraine, broadcast Russian propaganda and told Ukraine to make concessions. But while Trump clearly admires and envies Putin, and prefers a world in which the bullies get what they want, his clear highest priority is to end the war quickly so they can get accolades and financial benefits.

Taking his information diet and public demeanor seriously, Vance’s sympathies in Russia seem deeper.

Trump authorized additional arms sales to Europe knowing the weapons would go to Ukraine, made noise about sanctioning Russia — though never really followed through — and did not take the more drastic step of directly assisting Russia’s military effort, such as sharing intelligence on targets in Ukraine.

Vance can. Taking his information diet and public demeanor seriously, Vance’s sympathies in Russia seem deeper. Trump’s authoritarianism is personalist, centered around a cult of personality, focused on attention, power and money for himself. Vance seems to be a genuine far right ideologue. He aggressively cites anti-democracy billionaire Peter Thiel, “neo-monarchist” Curtis Yarvin and various self-identified “post-liberals” as intellectual influences. Like the far-right online he hangs out with, the VP defines “we” not as the United States and its allies against authoritarian adversaries like Putin’s Russia, but as transnational white Christian nationalism against democracy, wokeness and the broadly defined left in their own countries and around the world. It is a kind of Fascist Internationale.

The most logical explanation why Vance keeps trying to help Russia win is because he sees Putin as on his “team”, with Ukraine, the European Union, pro-democracy Americans and a freedom-loving international order on the other side.

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