U.S. Vice President JD Vance is spending the week in the United Kingdom on a combined holiday and working trip that precedes President Donald Trump’s scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage on Friday. Vance began the visit with talks at Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s Chevening House residence and has held calls with European leaders on the war in Ukraine while staying in the Cotswolds countryside. The stay has drawn protests from local residents in the Oxfordshire villages of Dean and Charlbury, where roughly 50–100 people gathered on 12 August for a “Vance Not Welcome” rally. Demonstrators carried signs that read “Stop Trump” and “Rentrez chez vous,” criticising U.S. policies on Ukraine and Gaza. British police and U.S. Secret Service agents erected roadblocks and deployed sniffer dogs around the Grade II-listed manor Vance has rented, a security footprint some residents said was excessive for the rural area. On Wednesday the vice president travelled to Royal Air Force Base Fairford in neighbouring Gloucestershire to address U.S. personnel stationed at the installation, home to the Air Force’s 501st Combat Support Wing and 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. Standing before a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, Vance told the troops that “every time a great victory is won, it is almost always the Brits and Americans that do it together,” adding that the administration intends to “bring peace to Europe once again.” Vance’s remarks underscore Washington’s push for European allies to shoulder more of the security and financial burden of the conflict in Ukraine. Over the weekend he said the United States is “done with the funding of the Ukraine war business,” signalling future aid will hinge on greater European participation.