Live Updates: In Speech to Europeans, Vance Signals Support for Far-Right Parties
"Vice President JD Vance scolded Europe for failing to uphold democratic values, and said nothing about President Trump’s talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. He later met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
As an anxious Europe sought clarity on President Trump’s approach to Russia and Ukraine, Vice President JD Vance instead used a speech in Munich on Friday to signal support for far-right parties, including Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which Moscow has backed through misinformation campaigns.
Addressing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference, Mr. Vance scolded them for not sufficiently upholding democratic values — an accusation many of them have leveled at the Trump administration — and offered what amounted to White House political backing for Europe’s far right. He urged the Europeans to end their opposition to anti-immigration parties such as the AfD, parts of which have been classified as extremist by German intelligence, and said the effort to marginalize them and their radical ideas amounted to antidemocratic action.
Mr. Vance called the parties a legitimate expression of the will of voters angered by high levels of migration over the last decade. His words would appear to play into the hands of Russia, which researchers say is behind a torrent of disinformation that has flooded Germany ahead of a federal election this month.
Much of that campaign appears aimed at undermining trust in mainstream parties and bolstering the AfD. Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s most high-profile adviser, has also supported AfD with posts on X, aligning with Russia’s strategic objective to destabilize Western democracies and support for Ukraine.
Mr. Vance did not mention Ukraine in his speech, despite the high tension in Europe over President Trump’s approach to ending the war, and as an explosion at the former nuclear plant at Chernobylon Friday illustrated the continued dangers of the conflict.
Mr. Vance earlier met with European leaders who have expressed worries about Mr. Trump’s confrontational attitude toward trans-Atlantic allies, including his demand that they spend more on defense. Those fears have multiplied since Mr. Trump’s phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia earlier this week, when he demonstrated an apparent willingness to offer concessions that Ukraine considers unacceptable, including giving up some of its territory.
Here’s what else to know:
Chernobyl blast: President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said a Russian drone had struck a building at the Chernobyl plantnorth of Kyiv that sits over its damaged reactor and prevents radiation leaks, and said it was a sign that the Kremlin was not serious about reaching a peace agreement. The Kremlin denied involvement in the blast. The International Atomic Energy Agency said radiation levels outside remained normal.
U.S. and Europe: After European allies and Mr. Zelensky pushed back against Mr. Trump’s outreach to Mr. Putin — insisting that Ukraine be included in any talks to end the war — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that the Russian and Ukrainian leaders would be at the table with Mr. Trump, who would lead negotiations.
Ukraine’s NATO bid: Mr. Hegseth reiterated that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was “unlikely” in any peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, and that Ukraine joining NATO was not likely to be part of such a deal. Mr. Zelensky, in a town hall discussion with four U.S. senators, said he had never counted on U.S. support for Ukraine entering the alliance, even under previous administrations. “The United States, they never saw us in NATO, they just spoke about it,” he said.
In his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance stressed the importance of beginning conversations about ending the war in Ukraine but declined to discuss specifics to preserve negotiators’ options. “Fundamentally the goal is, as President Trump outlined it, we want the war to come to a close, we want the killing to stop,” he said. “But we want to achieve a durable, lasting peace.”
Zelensky expressed thanks for American support but said there was much work to be done “to prepare the plan to stop Putin.” “Really we want peace very much,” he added. “But we need real security guarantees.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is meeting with Vice President JD Vance in Munich on Friday. Zelensky said Kyiv needs “security guarantees” as President Trump aims to broker talks to end the Ukraine-Russia war.
Seated at the table beside Vance was Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Keith Kellogg, the retired general who is Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, pushed back against criticism of Trump’s call with Putin, which effectively ended the Russian leader’s isolation from the West. “All the people who are worried about the phone call, where were you when we needed to stop Putin?” he said at the security conference, pointing to Europe’s failures to stop the Russian leader’s war in Georgia in 2008 and his previous invasion of Ukraine in 2014. “Why didn’t he invade when Trump was president? Because he was afraid of him.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, told the audience at the security conference that there was a “bipartisan reservoir of determination” in the Senate behind an effort to stop the war without abandoning Ukraine. “For the Senate, there is a strong majority, supermajority, in favor of supporting Ukraine, seeing this through and making sure that this does not come off as a win for Putin and embolden him further.”
Pointing to the tumultuous end of the war in Afghanistan, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said no peace deal should be discussed without Ukraine. “One of the mistakes in Afghanistan was that the Afghan government was not at the negotiating table when President Trump in his first term negotiated a peace agreement there,” Shaheen, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said. Her comments echoed those of NATO’s European members.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said he welcomed President Trump’s efforts to broker a peace deal with Russia, but he appeared to accept that Ukraine’s membership in the NATO military alliance would not be a part of that deal.
“The United States, they never saw us in NATO, they just spoke about it,” he said in a town-hall discussion with U.S. senators.
United States. They never saw us in NATO. They just spoke about it. But they really didn’t want us in NATO. It’s true. I’m not about people — and there are a lot of congressmen. Yes, senators, it’s true who have been always in participation with our NATO will, but really on the level of leader of the country, on the level of president, never I heard it. But during my term, I never heard that we will be in NATO. Never.
The German defense minister, Boris Pistorius, is offering a robust and somewhat spontaneous rebuke of Vance’s earlier speech — particularly his suggestion that Europe is akin to an authoritarian regime. “This is not acceptable,” he said, to widespread applause. “This is not the Europe, not the democracy, where I live.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine sat down with four U.S. senators from both sides of the aisle at the Munich Security Conference. In the town-hall discussion they reiterated U.S. support for Kyiv, but also touched on what a push for peace might look like, including a potential deal for Ukraine’s mineral resources. Zelensky said countries that supported Ukraine’s war effort would be given priority for investment opportunities, noting that if Russia continued to occupy mineral-rich Ukrainian territory, those minerals would be sold to China and North Korea.
“If we sign this minerals agreement, Putin is screwed because Trump will defend the deal,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina."
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