Sen. J.D. Vance: Zelensky ‘demanding more American dollars … while he throws priests and other figures in jail’

December 14, 2023

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for asking for additional U.S. funding while at the same time throwing “priests and other figures in jail.”

“He’s coming to the United States lecturing us and demanding more American taxpayer dollars … while he throws priests and other figures in jail,” Vance told Laura Ingraham. “I think it’s disgraceful. I’ve been in the Senate for almost a year now, and his is the most disgraceful charade I’ve seen in my year here.”

Zelensky was in Washington, D.C. this week meeting with President Biden and Congressional lawmakers to seek additional financial aid. U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill earlier this year that would’ve provided an additional $61 billion for Ukraine.

The U.S. has sent a total of $113 billion to Ukraine thus far, not including a $325 million “aid package” announced by Joe Biden during Zelenskyy’s White House visit in September.

In October, the Ukrainian parliament voted to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Shortly thereafter, journalist Tucker Carlson interviewed attorney Bob Amsterdam, who represents the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Amsterdam told Carlson that Ukrainian government was waging a “vicious, unlimited campaign” to “force conscription” on the church’s members.

In addition to banning the church, Amsterdam said the government was handing out “five year jail sentences for 75-year-old clerics.”

“It is shocking to me that a country such as the United States, with such strong Christian leadership, I thought, could allow this to go on,” said Amsterdam.

“The Ukrainian government has now banned an entire Christian denomination, and virtually no one in the United States has said anything about it,” said Carlson.

Vance also appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast and told Bannon that “too many Republicans are unwilling to actually hold this guy’s (Zelensky’s) feet to the fire and ask him the tough questions”…

“If we’re going to write you more money, which of course, I don’t think that we should, what are you trying to do with it? Are you going to let some of those priests out of prison? Are you going to not arrest American journalists, because right now they have an American journalist in a Ukrainian jail. None of the tough questions get asked, which is why I don’t think this is fundamentally about America reevaluating or asking tough questions about the Ukraine policy. This is about a guy coming to beg and to guilt trip the United States Senate. I don’t like it.”

Watch that full interview here: