Featured Image Credit: NBC News
Topics: JD Vance, Ukraine, Russia, Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Politics
Emily Brown
Topics: JD Vance, Ukraine, Russia, Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Politics
Vice President JD Vance has been hit with backlash after he made a surprising claim about World Wars while discussing the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Vance shared details about Russian leader Vladimir Putin's approach to peace talks when he sat down for a new interview with NBC's Meet The Press, which was released on Sunday (August 24), after Donald Trump met separately with both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to try and bring an end to the war.
During the interview, Vance was asked why he felt Putin was 'serious' about reaching a peace deal, prompting him to reveal that the Russian leader has 'conceded' to a couple of factors that were previously in contention.
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First, he explained: “They’ve recognized that they’re not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv, that was of course a major demand at the beginning."
A puppet regime, as per Merriam-Webster, is when a government is controlled by the government of another country.
Vance then continued: "And importantly, they’ve acknowledged that there is going to be some security guarantee to the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We're making progress."
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As he shared this insight, Vance went on to express belief that should Russia be allowed to 'keep' any of the territory it seized in Ukraine, it wouldn't send a negative message.
The interviewer asked: "Does it give China a green light to invade Taiwan?"
In response, Vance shared a confusing take on how previous World Wars have reached their conclusions.
He said: "This is how wars ultimately get settled. If you go back to World War II, if you go back to World War I, if you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation."
Vance quickly continued on with his argument, but listeners couldn't help but point out that World War II, which Vance specifically mentioned, didn't actually end with a negotiation.
Instead, the war ended with Hitler taking his own life and the unconditional surrender of Germany, as well as the surrender of Japan after they were the target of two atomic bombs.
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Vance's claim prompted a lot of responses from viewers, with one writing: "JD Vance has absolutely no clue about the history of World War 2."
Another described his remark as 'completely wrong and shockingly naive', while a third added: "Vance saying World War 2 ended in negotiations is one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard in geopolitics and that’s saying something."
Following the meetings with Zelenskyy and Putin, Trump is now working on getting the two leaders in a room together.
UNILAD has reached out to the White House for comment on Vance's remarks.