Trump has become a candidate for US president and announced a vice president who is against aid to Ukraine

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has officially become the Republican Party’s candidate for the 2024 presidential election. He has chosen 39-year-old Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate for Vice President.

Previously, Ohio Republican Senator James David Vance described the Western assumptions that Ukraine could push Russia back to its 1991 borders as “fantasy.”

“The average age of a soldier in their (Ukrainian) army is 43 years. They are recruiting old men now. The disaster is not approaching—it is already here. The fundamental problem of the war in Ukraine is not insufficient funding or lack of weapons. The West thought Ukraine could push Russia back to the 1991 borders. This was a fantasy 18 months ago; today it is a fiction. The only question is how much more destruction we impose on Ukraine before we advocate for peace,” Vance said on X.

Last year, he and 18 other Republicans signed a letter to President Biden urging an end to “unlimited aid.” He also threatened to block further aid packages unless they were tied to a strategy for quickly ending the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Before Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to Washington in December 2023, Vance demanded that the White House acknowledge that Ukraine would eventually have to cede some of its territories to Russia.

“We have a food crisis… We have an energy crisis… It is in America’s interest to recognize that Ukraine will have to give up some territories to the Russians, and we need to end the war,” he said.

“It is in America’s interest to recognize that Ukraine will have to cede some territory to the Russians, and we need to end this war. Regarding the Ukrainian issue: everyone with a head on their shoulders knows this will end with negotiations. The idea that Ukraine will push Russia back to the 1991 borders was absurd; no one really believed it,” the senator said in an interview with CNN.

Vance is against American aid to Ukraine. He insisted on halting the approval of Biden’s judicial nominees in protest against Trump’s indictment on 34 counts in the New York state case in May.

Trump chose Vance after a long search that started with at least a dozen possible candidates. In recent weeks, the list of candidates was narrowed down, with other finalists including North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Florida Senator Marco Rubio.