Vice President JD Vance on Thursday said President Donald Trump wanted positive talks between Russia and Ukraine but noted that the U.S. had a “range of options” should President Vladimir Putin fail to show up at the negotiating table with a deal guaranteeing peace for Ukraine.
Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, the vice president said Trump was ready to use a wide spectrum of choices to negotiate a peace agreement. Vance made it clear that Trump was determined to make a peace deal in Ukraine and that there would be incentives on the table for Russia to cooperate.
“If you look at President Trump’s approach to this, the range of options is extremely broad, and there are economic tools of leverage. There are, of course, military tools of leverage. There’s a whole host of things that we could do. But fundamentally, I think the President wants to have a productive negotiation, both with Putin and with Zelenskyy,” Vance told The Journal.
“I think there is a deal that is going to come out of this that’s going to shock a lot of people,” Vance added.
Vance’s remarks came just one day before the vice president was scheduled to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, in Munich. European officials will closely monitor the conversations to see where President Trump stands on ending the almost three-year Russia-Ukraine conflict.
On Wednesday, President Trump said he had a “lengthy” phone call with Putin whereby the Russian president agreed to “immediately” start talks over the war in Ukraine.
Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said the two leaders “agreed to work together, very closely.”
“We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now. I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, to lead the negotiations which, I feel strongly, will be successful,” Trump said on his social media website.
Leading the American delegation to the Munich Security Conference, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to prioritize the future of Ukraine above all else on the agenda.
Regarding his particular goals, Trump has been evasive other than implying that a deal will probably force Ukraine to give territory seized by Russia since it acquired Crimea in 2014.
“The Ukraine war has to end,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “Young people are being killed at levels that nobody’s seen since World War II. And it’s a ridiculous war.”
This week, both Trump and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth crushed Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO, which the alliance declared less than a year ago was “irreversible,” or to reclaim its territory that Russia had taken from it, including Crimea, which it currently controls nearly 20% of.
“I don’t see any way that a country in Russia’s position could allow … them to join NATO,” Trump said Thursday. “I don’t see that happening.”
Noting that negotiations have not yet started and that “maybe Russia will give up a lot, maybe they won’t,” he said what he thought Russia should give up to reach a deal.
At NATO headquarters, Hegseth reiterated Thursday that “simply pointing out realism like the borders won’t be rolled back to what everybody would like them to be in 2014 is not a concession to Vladimir Putin.” He said it’s a recognition of realities on the ground.
He added, though, that neither Russia nor Ukraine will “get everything that they want” and stressed that “any negotiation that’s had will be had with both.”
Leave a Reply