Like Trump, but worse. How activists were persuading JD Vance to support Ukraine

Last spring, Terrie Lawrence came from Ohio to D.C. to advocate for Ukraine on the Hill. She left one of her meetings – with Sen. JD Vance’s adviser – crying. 

Although Lawrence has no familial connections to Ukraine, her son Lance, a former marine, volunteered after the Russian full-scale invasion and died fighting for the country. In April 2024, she joined the Ukraine Action Summit, with hundreds of Ukraine supporters from across the US talking with their elected representatives. 

Vance, whom former president Donald Trump picked as his vice presidential nominee, is a fierce opponent of aid to Ukraine, but his Ukrainian American constituents attempted to change this stance. 

Ohio, with over 40,000 Ukrainian Americans living there in 2021, is considered one of the historical Ukrainian American strongholds in the US.

We have talked to pro-Ukraine advocates from the state about their experiences with the senator. They said they do not know what – if anything – can persuade the senator and Republican vice presidential candidate to support Ukraine in the war.

Vance’s office could not be reached for the story. 

Vance’s Ukrainian American constituents

Peter Fedynsky, a retired journalist living in Cleveland, first met Vance in 2022 on the campaign trail. 

Among Ukrainian Americans in Ohio, Vance became infamous for saying that he doesn’t "really care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other." Vance calls for halting aid to Ukraine and negotiating with Russia to end the war, even at the cost of Ukrainian territories or Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, which many Ukrainians adamantly oppose. 

Thus, Fedynsky with a group of supporters protested Vance’s appearance in Parma, Ohio, a town densely populated with Ukrainian Americans. 

When Fedynsky met Vance last March, he gave the senator a pamphlet titled "JD Vance – Ohio’s 9th President of the United States." 

"I told him I would want him to be president of all Americans, with which he, of course, agreed. I then informed him I’m of Ukrainian descent and further noted that we both want things to be better with Ukraine. 

However, he and I disagree because my experience, personal and professional, suggests that his position would make things considerably worse for Ukraine, the United States and the world," Fedynsky wrote on Facebook after the meeting. 

Fedynsky says Vance chuckled when he saw the pamphlet cover. The 34-page long pamphlet contained information about Russia’s war against Ukraine and arguments in support of helping Ukraine. It also included Fedynsky's contact information, but nobody from the senator’s team reached out to him, he said, and Vance did not soften his antagonism to helping Ukraine. 

Fedynsky has also repeatedly asked Vance to meet with his Ukrainian American constituents. Fedynsky recalled the senator making many polite promises, but added that Vance had not yet met the Ukrainian American community in Cleveland.  

According to Jane Nemik, Ukrainian Americans in Columbus also repeatedly tried to contact Vance’s office in the state and invited the senator to various events; they, just like Ukrainian Americans in Cleveland, received no responses. 

Vance has also been unresponsive to pro-Ukraine advocates on the international stage. 

At this year’s Munich Security Conference, he refused to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And in text messages with a blogger and right-wing conspiracist, Charles Johnson, Vance wrote, "Dude, I won’t even take calls from Ukraine."

Vance’s "pro-Russia" adviser

Terrie Lawrence voted for Vance in 2022 and was hopeful going into the meeting with his team. 

She brought pictures of her son, who died fighting for Ukraine, and his letters in which he argued why protecting Ukraine mattered to him. She was, however, shocked by her conversation with Andrew Baker, Vance’s national security adviser, meeting participants recalled.

As Vance’s national security adviser, Andrew Baker plays an important role in shaping the senator’s views on foreign affairs, especially Ukraine, according to Politico. 

Nemik said Lawrence wanted to be heard and supported in her pain for the loss of her son. But when Baker suggested that Lawrence’s son should have simply not joined the Ukrainian army, Lawrence slammed the photo of her son on the desk and walked out of the room. 

"She was just so offended by how nonchalant he was about the violence of the war and really her son's loss," Jeffrey Owens, who was present at the meeting, recalled.

"I would go as far as to describe [Baker] as kind of a mouthpiece of the Kremlin. He just offered up Russian propaganda over and over again." 

Participants of the meeting described Baker as unequivocally pro-Russia. They recalled that he blamed the invasion on NATO expansion and refused to fault Russia for anything. He, like Vance himself, also has repeatedly stressed that the US cannot continue to support Ukraine and that the war should be negotiated. 

Owens also suggested, based on the conversation he had with Baker, that the adviser was actively involved in Vance’s New York Times op-ed, published that spring, in which the senator argued that the US does not manufacture enough weapons to be able to support Ukraine. 

The pro-Ukraine team at the meeting wanted to take a picture with the senator’s team – a customary courtesy extended to visiting constituents. Baker refused to, according to Nemik, saying that the senator’s team did not want to be "associated" with pro-Ukraine activists.

Can Vance be swayed on Ukraine?

In the 2022 Senate primaries in Ohio, Peter Teluk, a registered Republican, supported Vance’s opponent because of Ukraine. 

Since then, Teluk met Vance multiple times, and says that the Senator "isn’t a jerk." "While I disagree with him, at least I respect Vance a little bit," Teluk said. 

Teluk believes one reason Vance isn’t swayed by these appeals is that Ukrainian Americans often fail to deliver what he needs – donations and votes. In 2022, Vance looked at the Ukrainian community, "which in Ohio should have more pull," and decided that he did not need it, Teluk added. 

"I have no idea how to reach him," Fedynsky said, reflecting on his past, unsuccessful attempts to persuade Vance. 

Fedynsky believes Vance is smart but also ambitious –

as long as his anti-Ukraine aid stance benefits him, he will not change it. 

To persuade Vance, Fedynsky said, one would have to persuade Ukraine skeptics among the Republican base in the entire state of Ohio, and now even in the entire US

Owens echoed this sentiment, calling Vance a "100 percent opportunist" who will take whatever opinion "he perceives is going to get him to the next step." At this point, however, Owens believes, the chances of persuading the vice presidential candidate to accept any other foreign policy view are slim. 

Even if Vance cannot be persuaded to vote for military or financial aid to Ukraine, some advocates said they tried to find other common grounds. 

Teluk, for example, has talked with Vance’s team about the REPO Act, which gave the president the authority to seize Russian state assets to help Ukraine. When certain policies do not cost US taxpayers, even Republicans who oppose aid to Ukraine, like Vance, may support them. 

Vance, however, still opposes the Act. He argues that such a move would undermine the trust in the Western financial system.

Natalia Lebedin, a Ukrainian American who lives in Columbus, led the Ohio delegation at Ukraine Action Summits last spring in both April and September of this year. She is not sure if there is any possibility of a "fusion of horizons" on Ukraine between Vance and pro-Ukraine advocates. "We are so far apart in how we see the world," she said.

Still, pro-Ukraine Ohioans "are always going hopeful," Lebedin said. In September, according to her, the team hoped to discuss Russian abductions of Ukrainian children with Vance’s team but were not able to arrange a meeting. 

During some meetings in 2023, pro-Ukraine advocates were able to get Vance’s team to acknowledge that the US needs to help return abducted children home, according to Nemik. However, during the spring meeting with Vance’s national security adviser Baker, they were not able to find any common ground.

Baker did not want to concede that Russia did anything wrong, Nemik recalled. 

* * * * *

Vance continues his public crusade against helping Ukraine in the war, most recently refusing to call Putin an enemy. As pro-Ukraine advocates have little hope Vance can be swayed, they worry about his influence in a possible second Trump administration. 

"I think whatever Trump decides, this is what's going to be on Ukraine," Teluk said. 

For some, like Nemik, Vance’s presence on the Republican presidential ticket is enough to write off Trump’s candidacy. 

Still, if the Trump-Vance ticket wins, pro-Ukraine advocates and the Ukrainian government will have to learn to work with someone they could not persuade in the past two years, and who self-reportedly "won’t even take calls from Ukraine."

*The author of the article sent questions to JD Vance and Andrew Baker but did not receive responses from them. Likewise, Terri Lawrence did not respond to the inquiry. Three Summit participants present at the meeting shared her story. 

Yurii Stasiuk,

Yale University student, Deputy Editor of Yale Daily News,

for European Pravda