Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) argued during an appearance on CNN with host Jake Tapper on Monday that sending tens of billions of dollars more in military aid to Ukraine won’t help turn the tide of battle against Russia after spending more than $100 billion so far.

To begin the segment, Tapper played a clip of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggesting that threats from Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and other countries are all interconnected before throwing it over to Vance, who disagrees.

“Well, so, first of all, Jake, I think it’s possible to have separate debates. In fact, congressional Republicans tried to force an Israel-alone aid package just a couple of weeks ago that Democrats blocked in the Senate,” Vance, who won office last year with the backing of former President Donald Trump, began.

“So we can have separate debates. And I think that we need to have separate debates. But on the Ukraine question, in particular, everybody knows, everybody with a brain in their head, Jake, knows that this was always going to end in negotiation,” Vance continued before predicting a bleak future for Ukraine if there is no negotiated cease-fire settlement with Moscow soon.

“The idea that Ukraine was going to throw Russia back to the 1991 borders was preposterous. Nobody actually believed it. So what we’re saying to the president and really to the entire world is, you need to articulate what the ambition is. What is $61 billion going to accomplish that $100 billion hasn’t?” the Ohio Republican added.

“We have to remember, Jake, Ukraine is functionally destroyed as a country. The average age of a soldier in the Ukrainian army right now is 43. That’s tragic. That’s older than me. I’m 39. If this thing goes on a little bit longer, the average age of the Ukrainian soldier is going to be older than you, and then, a year later, it could be a Wolf Blitzer. That is a tragedy. What does it look like?” he asked.

“We are getting to a place where we’re going to be functionally on the hook to pay for Ukrainian pensioners, to rebuild the entire country. We need to bring the killing to a stop, and that’s what American leadership should be doing, not writing more blank checks to the war,” he said.

Tapper responded by asking Vance to address concerns that if the U.S. doesn’t stop Russia in Ukraine, it will empower President Vladimir Putin to invade a neighboring NATO country such as Poland.

“So, there’s two reasons I don’t buy this. First of all, Putin has shown he’s much weaker than a lot of people feared. The Ukrainians have fought bravely. They have also stalled Putin at a very small amount of territorial gain relative to the entire country. The idea that he can march to Poland or Berlin is preposterous,” Vance said.

“And the other thing that this really misses here is, we have to remember, our NATO allies, with the exception of a few Eastern Europeans, are not carrying their fair share of the burden. Most of them don’t even spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense,” he added.

“If Putin is a threat to Berlin, that means the Germans should be changing something about their defense policy. It doesn’t mean we can write indefinite checks to Ukraine,” Vance noted.