Donald Trump’s flailing war on Iran has forced his vice president to go hat in hand to a world leader he brutally ambushed in an Oval Office showdown last year.
JD Vance has led the charge among Trump administration officials to cut or even end U.S. military aide for Ukraine as it fights to defend itself against Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
But the Financial Times reports that Vance had to plead with President Volodymyr Zelensky for Ukraine to stop drone attacks on oil shipping vessels in the Black Sea. At the time of the call on July 31, the White House was panicking that those strikes would send gas prices even higher after Trump’s Middle Eastern conflict upended the world energy market.
It is unlikely to have been an easy conversation for Vance, who spent his first months in office using the Ukrainian leader as a punching bag. The vice president notoriously ambushed Zelensky during an Oval Office meeting last February, demanding a grovelling display of gratitude for U.S. backing against Russia. Vance has since bragged about trying to reduce that level of support, telling Fox News last August: “We’re done with the funding of the Ukraine war business.”
Trump’s No.2 put in the call last month specifically because the Trump administration was concerned about Ukrainian attacks on tankers transporting crude from Kazakhstan to a terminal in Novorossiysk, a Russian port city. “Kazakh crude has become particularly important to global markets as Middle Eastern supplies remain constrained by the Iran war,” the FT reports.
Kyiv agreed not to target that particular terminal’s infrastructure or the ships using it, provided those tankers weren’t Russian, carrying Russian goods, or otherwise under Ukrainian sanctions, the FT said. It has not done so since, even if that was the extent of Ukraine’s concessions—as it made clear by bombing other parts of the port on Tuesday night.
A person familiar with Kyiv’s position told the FT that Ukraine made the deal because it wants a U.S. production license for Patriot interceptor missiles for air defense, with Zelensky telling Vance on their call that obtaining those systems is Ukraine’s “top priority.”
Vance’s plea came just days after Trump’s war with Iran, launched on Feb. 28 with a promise it would last a “few weeks,” entered its sixth month. Hostilities show no signs of abating, while Iran’s repeated closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital naval corridor from the Persian Gulf through which about a fifth of global oil supply passes, has sent gas prices sharply higher.
Pain at the pump has been a constant throughout the conflict. Average pump prices hit highs of $4.55 per gallon in May and still stood at $4.01 as of Wednesday morning. Those numbers come ahead of November’s midterms, with polls consistently ranking cost-of-living concerns as a chief anxiety among voters. Democrats currently hold an 8-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, and could well regain control of both the House and Senate.
The Daily Beast has contacted Vance’s office, the White House, and Zelensky’s office for comment on this story.
