26 Comments
User's avatar
Kat Harvey's avatar

Zelensky has millions tucked away in property in the USA, which would make any honest observer suspicious years ago. I’m glad David Vance has had the courage to come out with the fact that Zelensky is revelling in seeing himself as a war leader. I see the style as cute little “David v Goliath” rather than Churchillian. That’s how victim politics works.

My heart went out to the Russian mothers who protested in Moscow because they knew their sons would be conscripted and killed in this conflict.

This mess should have been resolved in 2014 with the first move by Russia to get its oil lines secured. Who failed? NATO. The snatching of the whole of Crimea followed. To historians and strategists, the time for the West to ensure Russia wasn’t left feeling sore and fearful was just after the fall of the Berlin Wall but nothing substantial was done even then to placate them and prevent future conflict.

I sympathise with ordinary people on both sides of this but I think Zelensky has lost the support now of most Ukrainians and his propaganda success in the West is wearing thin.

Expand full comment
Mike Conway's avatar

"Zelensky has millions tucked away in property in the USA."

If you have evidence for this claim, that isn't just rubbish posted by dubious social media accounts, please share it.

"My heart went out to the Russian mothers who protested in Moscow because they knew their sons would be conscripted and killed in this conflict."

Mine too, but it isn't Zelensky who's responsible for their deaths. It is the authoritarian leader who ordered them into a sovereign nation, based on nothing but his own ahistorical fantasies of Ukraine as a vassal state. The indisputable truth is that all those young men would be alive today had Putin simply decided not to invade.

Expand full comment
GreaterIsrahell's avatar

You fail to understand what every Russian alive today is painfully aware of: There is a large number of German produced tanks standing in Poland and western Ukraine today. The last time Geman tanks were headed for Moscow they came though Ukraine.

Russian government officials have stated countless times since 2014 that if NATO does not "Finlandise" Ukraine, Russia will. Another thing every Russian is painfully aware of is that Ukraine as a NATO member is an existential threat to Russia. There are plans in the Pentagon to Balkanise Russia, and they know it.

"The indisputable truth is that all those young men would be alive today had Putin simply decided not to invade."

I saw with my own eyes two C-130 cargo planes flying in the general direction of Poland at 10AM on Monday, 17 January, 2022. The first thing I said to my wife was, "Ok, now TSHTF. It's either Ukraine or Belaruse." The two planes returned at 8PM the same day. This went on all week.

On the evening news on Friday the news anchor spent six or seven minutes talking about the brutal dictator in Minsk, and then another six or seven minutes about the psychopath in the Kremlin.

Then came the most important sentence out of her mouth in at leat a decade: "The movement of large quantities of military equipment is NOT part of a military drill.", before swiftly moving on to a fluff piece about this country's Oscar nominee for best foreign picture that year.

...., and this was a full five weeks prior to 24 February.

Unprovoked attack, my ass. Had the Russian government hesitated, the battles would have been fought on the Russian side of the border, but equally many Ukrainian men would have been canon fodder.

NATO is running a protection racket, and anyone who doesn't buy their weapons and counter measurs will suffer the consequences.

Expand full comment
Kat Harvey's avatar

I take The Times. It has been mentioned on a few occasions as well as by other leading newspapers, not as a headline of course, just in the text. There’s nothing officially wrong with this per se. It just doesn’t look good for the world’s greatest money hound. I believe most of his property is in California.

Putin had reasons for invading, which are not well publicised or evidenced in the world’s press. Whatever we may think, it will come out eventually when the peace talks are discussed.

Expand full comment
Mike Conway's avatar

This entire unhinged rant might have been written by the Kremlin press office. You have swallowed every untruth uttered by Putin and his apologists without a pause for thought. That's hardly surprising from someone so naive that he used to make appearances on Putin's propaganda network RT (in the company of such great patriots as George Galloway and Ken Livingstone). There were people like you in 1939. They were called traitors, appeasers and Nazi apologists, and many of them were interned. It's what you deserve too.

Expand full comment
David Vance's avatar

Cry harder.

Expand full comment
Mike Conway's avatar

Just the sort of childish response I'd expect from somebody who openly supports a totalitarian regime. Despicable.

Expand full comment
Bettina's avatar

It's not binary - not supporting endless war in Ukraine does not imply support for Putin. Equally, understanding the reasons for Russia's invasion does not imply support for Putin.

I personally find the whole reduction of every nuanced issue into goodies and baddies, as you do, very childish.

Expand full comment
Mike Conway's avatar

Except that David Vance is not merely declining to support endless war in Ukraine. He has consistently repeated every Kremlin talking point and acted as an uncritical Putin apologist for the last three years. He has not a word to say about Putin's dismantling of the Russian media, his murder of political opponents, or his brutal suppression of dissenting opinion. He's happy to repeat the idiotic lie that Zelensky's a dictator without acknowledging that Putin, who presides over what is effectively a one-party state and wins farcical 'elections' with more than 90% of the vote, actually is one. There isn't much room for subtlety when one is pointing out the rank ignorance of David Vance's geopolitical views.

Expand full comment
Bettina's avatar

Well, that's what I mean about nuance. Just because someone is generally corrupt doesn't mean that everything they do is without merit. Hitler was a vegetarian!

Expand full comment
David Vance's avatar

Having looked at the substacks you follow, I will waste no more time on your outlandish drivel.

Expand full comment
Mike Conway's avatar

Says the man who thinks the moon landings were faked and the Titanic didn't sink. Moron.

Expand full comment
Bettina's avatar

The moon landings were definitely faked! Why do you think no-one has been 'back'?

Expand full comment
Mike Conway's avatar

Ah, you're another great advertisement for the intellectual calibre of David Vance's audience.

Expand full comment
Paul's avatar

True, he is a Putin apologist and lies repeatedly. Ukraine was not killing native Russians, there were plenty in the opposite direction.

Expand full comment
David Vance's avatar

You appear oblivious to what happened in the Donbas. Remarkable

Expand full comment
Paul's avatar

I have been there, you obviously haven't or you would not say such ridiculous things. You are an armchair warrior who knows nothing.

Expand full comment
David Vance's avatar

If you have been there then your ignorance is all the more disturbing

Expand full comment
Paul's avatar

Do you suffer from ignorance and delusions, or are you a habitual liar?

Expand full comment
GreaterIsrahell's avatar

"In fact, they pretend that “79,000” Ukrainians have lost their lives when the true figure is closer to 500,000. An entire generation of young Ukrainian men has been lost and they could not give a sh*t about it. Instead they virtue signal and pretend that Putin was the sole aggressor when that is untrue."

Those wer the kind of things I talked about when someone I know was absolutely thrilled that Twinings ended the production of their Russian Earl Grey tea. My response to her was, "Boy, I'll bet Vladimir Putin is absolutely infuriated, and going off the hinges about now, and it reminds me of a childhood curse: "I HOPE YOU DON'T GET ANYTHING YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS!" "

Then came the stupid facial expression clearly exposing her lack of comprehending what I had just said.

Expand full comment
Jamie Palmer's avatar

Rust is a very polite way of putting it.

Expand full comment
Paul's avatar

More lies from Vance.

Expand full comment
Jamie Palmer's avatar

It’s rare that people troll on Substack. Shouldn’t you be on Skyblue?

Expand full comment
David Vance's avatar

It’s amazing how Ukraine brings them out

Expand full comment
David Vance's avatar

“Teacher”? I see 🤡

Expand full comment