WILMINGTON, Del, Oct 28, (AP): US Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance says Russia is a US adversary but suggests it's counterproductive to approach Moscow as an enemy. The Ohio senator also said Donald Trump is committed to NATO, the transatlantic military alliance seen as the bulwark preventing further Russian aggression in Europe, although the former president has pledged to "finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”

Vance, in a series of television interviews that aired Sunday, nine days before the election, made clear that Trump, if back in the White House, would press European members to spend more on defense and that their administration would work to quickly wind down Moscow's war in Ukraine that began in February 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops across the border. "We’re not in a war with him, and I don’t want to be in a war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” Vance said when pressed during an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press” on whether Russia is an enemy.

Vance said "we have to be careful about the language that we use in international diplomacy. We can recognize, obviously, that we have adversarial interests with Russia." US officials this past week confirmed that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for training before potentially being deployed in Ukraine. US officials say Russia has ramped up a disinformation campaign aimed at sowing distrust in the results in U.S. election on Nov 5.

Officials on Friday confirmed Moscow’s role in creating a video that appears to show the destruction of mail ballots in Pennsylvania, in what was the latest effort linked to Russia on spreading false information on social media. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has argued that Trump is too cozy with Putin and that Trump's return to the White House would be calamitous for Ukraine and America's European allies. Vance was circumspect about supporting further sanctions against Russia, saying the Biden administration's use of the tool for Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been as effective as a "wet firecracker.”