American writer, scholar, and Chair in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington DC George Weigel has urged U.S. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance to reconsider his position on Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Weigel penned an open letter, posted by the First Things outlet, Ukrinform reports.
“You will soon take the oath of office as vice president of the United States,” the author of the letter noted, congratulating the Republican politician on Thanksgiving.
Weigel highly praised Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, published several years ago, referring to him as a purposeful person who sought democratic self-governance. At the same time, the scholar noted that in recent years, some of Vance’s public rhetoric has been in sharp contrast to the themes and tone of the book, calling for better than appealing to people’s baser instincts.
“I would also like to ask you, as one Catholic and one patriot to another, to rethink your position on the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine. (…) Why? Because crass indifference to injustice and suffering is ignoble,” Weigel emphasized.
He stressed that what happens in Ukraine is directly related to America’s national security and to world peace.
“By formation and conviction, Vladimir Putin is a Chekist: a pathological autocrat whose warped worldview and homicidal treatment of political opponents were formed in the moral cesspool of the Soviet Union’s security services,” the author of the letter continued.
He recalled that Putin openly declared his intention to reverse history’s verdict on the Soviet system: “He is conducting a genocidal war in Ukraine to further that ambition. Like the aggressors of the 1930s, he will not stop until he is stopped.”
In this context, the author of the appeal advised the vice president-elect to learn more about Putin and emphasized: “Ukraine is fighting for all of us and that if Ukraine loses, so do we—as does the world.”
As Ukrinform reported earlier, J.D. Vance during the election campaign said he did not care about the fate of Ukraine as he was more concerned about the situation in the United States.
