US VP blames Biden policy for Oval Office clash with Zelenskyy

US Vice President JD Vance has attributed his February confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office to frustration with former President Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy, rather than any personal animosity toward the Ukrainian leader.

In a wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY on August 27, Vance said, “Sometimes people disagree… Do I wish that we had had a blowup in the Oval Office in public? Not necessarily. But, I think that was useful for the American people to see.”

The February 28 meeting occurred as Zelenskyy visited the White House to sign a deal for the United States to receive revenue from Ukraine’s minerals in exchange for military assistance against Russia’s invasion. The encounter quickly escalated after President Donald Trump criticised Zelenskyy’s attire and continued into a heated shouting match lasting nearly an hour.

Vance argued that the root of the confrontation lay not in Zelenskyy’s behaviour, but in what he described as the Biden administration’s ineffective strategy toward Ukraine. “What always really bothered me about this relationship was not the Ukrainians as much as it was the American side, specifically the Democratic administration of Joe Biden,” he said.

Vance highlighted the scale of U.S. support under Biden, noting the administration had committed $128 billion to help defend Ukraine. “When Biden was in office, Zelenskyy would come to Washington and leave with billions of dollars without any real goal, any real diplomacy, any real sense of what we were going to buy with that a hundred billion dollars,” Vance said.

He added, “And that was always what frustrated me far more than Zelenskyy was asking for help from Washington… Ukraine ‘just felt like this weird money pit where we'd throw money after the problem without any real plan to solve the problem.’ That always really frustrated me.”

Vance insisted that despite the February blowup, he and Trump have maintained dialogue with Zelenskyy. “On this issue, we're pretty aligned with President Zelenskyy… Even though we have some disagreements, we, of course, want to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity. We don't want Russia to conquer the entire country,” he said.

Vance also indicated the Trump administration’s focus is on negotiating peace, stating, “What's best for everybody, including the United States, would be to stop the killing and bring this thing to a peaceful settlement.”

The interview underscores Vance’s central critique: that the Biden administration’s approach to Ukraine involved substantial financial support without a clearly articulated strategy to resolve the conflict or achieve lasting diplomatic outcomes.

By Aghakazim Guliyev