Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News Sunday that Moscow should “wake up and embrace reality” as the Trump administration is about to end the war.
JD Vance reflects an oval office conflict with Zelenskyy
Vice President JD Vance says the intense exchange of oval offices with the Ukrainian president revealed tensions in the major US ukraine.
Vice President JD Vance says Russia needs to “wake up” and come to the table to negotiate with Ukraine, and President Donald Trump repeats the tone of the full-scale war.
Vance’s September 28 comments came after Trump claimed that Ukraine was in a position to “fight everything in Ukraine in its original form and win.”
“Russians have to wake up here and embrace reality,” Vance told Fox News on Sunday. “A lot of people are dying, and they don’t often show it for that.”
Hours before Vance’s appearance, Russia launched one of the war’s biggest aerial attacks, shocking Kiev and other parts of Ukraine early on Sunday. The attack killed at least four people and injured dozens of others, Reuters reported. A massive drone attack from Russia tested Ukraine’s restricted air defenses throughout 2025.
On the topic of Ukraine’s ability to win the president’s war, and support for NATO countries such as Poland, which have been infringed in recent weeks, came one day after meeting with US allies during a UN General Assembly rally on September 23.
Zelenskyy told Trump that there was “good news” on the battlefield and thanked him for selling NATO weapons that had been moved to Ukraine.
Appearing on Fox, Vance said he is now Russia.
“How many more are they willing to lose? Even if they gain military advantage on the ground there, how many are they willing to kill?” the Vice President added: “I don’t think there’s that much answer, but certainly our attitude here is to continue working for peace. I hope that the Russians will actually wake up to earthly reality.”
Contributors: Francesca Chambers and Zach Anderson, USA Today. Reuters.
Kathryn Palmer is a political reporter for USA Today. You can contact her kapalmer@usatoday.com And with x @Kathrynplmr.
