Vice-President J.D. Vance continues to face opposition to his Ukraine policy as the protests in the US intensify.
On 8 March, he posted a tweet claiming that a group of “Slava Ukraini” protesters allegedly followed him and his 3-year-old daughter, who grew increasingly anxious and scared as a result.
“I decided to speak with the protesters in the hopes that I could trade a few minutes of conversation for them leaving my toddler alone. (Nearly all of them agreed.) It was a mostly respectful conversation, but if you’re chasing a 3-year-old as part of a political protest, you’re a shit person,” he wrote.
However, the organizers later disputed this claim, with a video showing that he and the protesters had a public conversation as the pro-Ukraine protesters walked down William Howard Taft Road in Walnut Hills.
According to one of the protesters, Anne Henry, who shared the video with WCPO, she and others spontaneously passed Vance as they were headed to the nearby protest. The video corroborates her claim that there’s no chase, though it does not show what happened before or after the conversation. In it, Vance engaged in a respectful discussion with the protesters, pointed out that Russia invaded Ukraine, and rejected the notion that the US was selling out Ukraine.
“I think that what we’re doing is we’re actually forcing a diplomatic settlement,” Vance said. “We think it’s in the best interest of our [own people] and frankly in the best interest of the Ukrainians for the war to stop,” Vance said.
Henry noted that she was happy Vance spoke with them but did not appreciate his tweet.
“We all wanted it to be respectful and calm,” she said. “We just really wanted to know what was really bothering us.”
The Oval Office spat’s aftermath
The latest confrontation between Vance and the protesters followed a series of events, triggered by the now-infamous meeting at the Oval Office on 28 February, during which Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vance clashed over the idea of pursuing a diplomatic settlement with Russia.
While Zelenskyy pointed out that Russia broke all ceasefires since initially invading Ukraine in 2014, Vance insisted that it was possible and accused Zelenskyy of being ungrateful for US support.
The next day, Vance and his family headed to a ski resort in Vermont where hundreds of outraged protesters lined the snow-covered streets while visiting Sugarbush Resort in Waitsfield.
The protesters held up signs that included Vance being called a “national disgrace” and a “traitor” and encouraged the family to “go ski in Russia.”
His family was eventually forced to cut their four-day trip short after seeing the intensity of the protests.
The Ukraine delegation is heading to Saudi Arabia for talks with the US counterparts tomorrow in an attempt to mend the relations and take the initiative in the peace process by offering a partial truce.
