By Jacob Burg
Vice President JD Vance said on Aug. 10 that the Trump administration is working to arrange talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Vance said he thinks that it would be productive for Putin and Zelenskyy to meet before the Russian president meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska but said it is Trump who needs to “bring these two together.”
“We’re, of course, going to talk to the Ukrainians,” Vance said. “I actually spoke with Ukrainians this morning.”
He noted that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has been talking to them quite a bit.”
“We’re going to keep that dialogue open,” he said.
“But fundamentally, this is something where the president needs to force President Putin and President Zelenskyy, really, to sit down to figure out their differences.”
Trump said on Aug. 9 that the “highly anticipated meeting” with Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15 is part of planned negotiations to end the more than three-year war between Russia and Ukraine.
“Further details to follow,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
On Aug. 10, Vance said one of the biggest “log jams” in trying to secure an end to the war is Putin’s refusal to sit down with Zelenskyy.
“We’re at a point now where we’re … trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that, around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict,” Vance said.
The vice president said that ultimately the United States is looking for some kind of negotiated peace settlement under which Ukrainians and Russians can “live in relative peace, where the killing stops.”
However, Vance cautioned that “it’s not going to make anybody super happy.”
“Both the Russians and Ukrainians, probably, at the end of the day, are going to be unhappy with it,“ he said. ”But I don’t actually sit down and have this negotiation absent the leadership of Donald J. Trump.”
Vance noted that Trump told him privately that “maybe this works out, maybe it doesn’t, but it’s worth the effort.”
“It’s worth trying, and we’re [going] to keep on using the diplomatic influence of the president of the United States to accomplish an end to this conflict,” Vance said.
He said the United States condemns Russia for starting the war with its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“We don’t like that,“ Vance said. ”This is where things are. But you’ve got to make peace here. And the only way to make peace is to sit down and talk.
“You can’t finger-point. You can’t wag your finger at somebody and say, ‘You’re wrong; we’re right.’ The way to peace is to have a decisive leader sit down and force people to come together.”
On Aug. 9, Zelenskyy ruled out ceding any of Ukraine’s territory to Russia as part of negotiations to end the war.
“The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question already is in the Constitution of Ukraine,“ he said in a video address. ”No one will deviate from this—and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier. The Ukrainian people deserve peace. But all partners must understand what a dignified peace is.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine “will not reward Russia for what it has perpetrated.”
Trump’s Aug. 15 meeting with Putin will be the two leaders’ first in-person meeting since Trump returned to the White House.
Andrew Thornebrooke and Aldgra Fredly contributed to this report.
