Nobody believes Ukraine can restore 1991 borders – US senator

American leadership is needed to end the fighting instead of writing “blank checks” a US senator says

The United States needs to accept that Ukraine is going to “cede some territory” to Russia and bring the conflict to a close, Republican Senator J.D. Vance has argued, stressing that it’s in the interests of both the US and Ukraine to stop the fighting.

Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper on the State of the Union show on Sunday, the lawmaker explained why he opposes additional aid to Ukraine, saying it is very unlikely that Kiev will be able to overpower Russia and recover lost land, and that further financial and military assistance will only prolong the conflict. 

“What is $61 billion is going to accomplish that $100 billion has not?” Vance asked, adding that “everybody with a brain in their head” knows that the conflict will end in negotiations.

“The idea that Ukraine was going to throw Russia back to 1991 borders is preposterous. Nobody actually believes it,” he said.  

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“We are getting to a place where we are going to be functionally on the hook to pay for the Ukrainian pensioners, to rebuild the country,” he continued, arguing that the White House should concentrate on bringing the “killing to a stop” rather than “writing more blank checks.” 

Last Wednesday, the US Senate blocked a $111 billion spending package that included over $60 billion in funding for Kiev, despite President Joe Biden’s pleas to pass the bill. Biden accused Republicans of wanting to “literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield and damage our national security in the process.” 

Since the outbreak of the conflict with Russia in February 2022, Kiev has received over $100 billion in aid from the US, including weapons, ammunition, and funds to shore up the Ukrainian budget and pay pensions and government salaries.

In a new survey conducted by The Financial Times and the Michigan Ross business school, 48% of Americans said they believed their nation was spending too much on aid to Kiev. Only 27% said the amount was appropriate, and 11% believed the US was not spending enough. The British newspaper reported the results on Sunday.

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected territorial concessions to Russia, insisting on the restoration of its 1991 borders, meaning the return of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions – which voted to join Russia in September 2022 – and Crimea, which did so in 2014, in response to the US-backed coup in Kiev.