The British Are Hysterical Over Vance’s Sober Analysis Of Ukraine

British media is offended by the suggestion from Vice President J.D. Vance that an American economic presence is a better security guarantee for Ukrainians than “peacekeeping” troops pulled across Europe.

On the eve of the president’s address to Congress, Vance went on Fox News’ “Hannity” with Sean Hannity to discuss the importance of a minerals deal between Washington, D.C., and Kyiv. The deal, which was supposed to be signed Friday, would have established an American-controlled fund filled with revenue from Ukraine’s natural resources designed to facilitate the war-torn country’s reconstruction. The agreement, however, was sidelined after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hostile White House meeting. Vance rejected Zelensky’s posture to prolong the war in the White House Friday and again on Fox News Monday.

“Hope is not a strategy — throwing money and ammunition at a terrible conflict, that is not a strategy,” Vance told Hannity. “The only guy in town with a strategy is the President United States, and everybody needs to follow his lead.”

“What scares me,” Hannity said, “is Zelensky, when he says it’s going to go on for years, how many more lives are going to be lost? He’s not going to have a country to save — that minerals deal would have provided the money to rebuild their country and a strong U.S. presence and maybe European troops as well.”

“The President knows that, look, if you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said. “That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”

“The security guarantee and also the economic guarantee for Ukraine,” Vance added, “is to rebuild the country and ensure that America has a long-term interest. You’re not going to do that if you come to the Oval Office, insult the president and refuse to follow his plan for peace.”

The British media characterized the vice president’s comments as a dismissal of France and the United Kingdom’s military contributions to U.S.-led initiatives in the Middle East after each nation publicly pledged “peacekeeping” troops to hold Ukraine pending a ceasefire.

“UK military help is from ‘some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 40 years’” read a breaking news headline from the London-based paper, The Times.

A former member of the British Parliament openly wondered whether President Donald Trump is a “Russian asset” over the vice president’s remark. Similar condemnations of the vice president were reported in The Independent, Politico Europe, and the Daily Mail.

“JD Vance slams UK as ‘some random country’ after tense interaction with Prime Minister,” ran another headline in the Irish Star.

Vance slammed the outrage as “absurdly dishonest.”

“I don’t even mention the UK or France in the clip, both of whom have fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond,” Vance wrote on X.

“But,” the vice president added, “let’s be direct: there are many countries who are volunteering (privately or publicly) support who have neither the battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful.”

In fact, Politico reported Sunday on comments from UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said “‘A number of countries’ agreed to commit troops to a peacekeeping force,” but “added that he would leave it to individual nations to announce their participation.”

The European media has been eager to villainize Vance ever since the vice president lectured western leaders at a security conference in Germany over supposed democracies engaging in authoritarian censorship.

“While the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine,” Vance said at the Munich Security Conference. “The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe … is the threat from within.”

Vance chronicled a series of events wherein European leaders celebrated the kind of censorship and election interference once condemned by western democracies.

“For years, we’ve been told that everything we fund, and support is in the name of our shared democracy values,” the vice president said. “Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy, but when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.”

A French newspaper called Le Monde reported on the speech last month as a declaration of “ideological war on Europe” and “a violent attack on European democracies.”

Tristan Justice is a national correspondent for The Federalist and the co-author of “Fat and Unhappy: How ‘Body Positivity’ Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself).” He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here. Buy “Fat and Unhappy” here.