The cousin of Vice President JD Vance, who volunteered in Ukraine, has said that the Trump administration is acting like “useful idiots” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Nate Vance is reported to have spent three years fighting in Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Now, in an interview with French outlet Le Figaro, he accused his cousin and President Donald Trump of ambushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the now infamous Oval Office blow-up.
During the meeting, the VP harshly criticised Zelensky in front of the TV cameras, calling him ungrateful and disrespectful.
Nate Vance said the vice president is “intelligent” and a “good guy,” but that he’s playing politics when it comes to aid to Ukraine.
The vice president has long been heavily critical of U.S. aid to Ukraine, even during his short stint as an Ohio senator.
“When he criticized aid to Ukraine, I told myself that it was because he had to please a certain electorate, that it was the game of politics,” Nate Vance told Le Figaro. “But what they did to Zelensky was an ambush of absolute bad faith.”
“Donald Trump and my cousin clearly believe they can placate Vladimir Putin,” he added. “They are wrong. The Russians are not about to forget our support for Ukraine. We are Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots.”
He added that he was “disappointed” by the Oval Office showdown.
“I was disappointed. When JD justifies his distrust of Zelensky by the ‘reports’ he has seen, I thought I was going to choke,” said Nate Vance.
“His own cousin was on the front lines,” he added. “I could have told him the truth, without pretense, without personal interest. He never tried to find out more.”
Nate Vance said he left messages with the vice president’s office but that he hasn’t heard back. He got back to the U.S. in January, not long before his cousin and Trump took office, noting that he couldn’t risk being captured.
The Texan and former U.S. Marine said he volunteered for the Da Vinci Wolves First Motorized Battalion from 2022 until January. Vance and the VP share grandparents and have gone on vacation together.
“Being your family doesn’t mean I’m going to accept you killing my comrades,” he told the French paper.
The Trump administration has begun speaking to Russia, even after its invasion violated international law, according to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Trump said Friday that he’s “doing very well” with Russia, and that he thinks it’s “more difficult to deal with Ukraine.”
The president has falsely accused Zelensky of being a “dictator” and pushed false approval ratings of the Ukrainian president to claim that he has little support among his countymen.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin appears overjoyed by the recent turn in U.S. policy on the war in Ukraine. Trump’s statements have been celebrated on Russian state media, where Kremlin-loyal pundits have welcomed the change in American policy to the war in Ukraine.
