WASHINGTON–Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that the Trump administration wants to see Russian and Ukrainian officials agree to a meeting as “the next big step” in trying to end the war between the countries.
Vance told former Munich Security Conference (MSC) chairman Wolfgang Ischinger during a question-and-answer session at the MSC’s Munich Leaders Meeting in Washington, DC, that getting the two sides together is the next goal in peace talks.
“In particular, the step that we would like to make right now is we would like both the Russians and the Ukrainians to actually agree on some basic guidelines for sitting down and talking to one another,” Vance said.
“Obviously, the United States is happy to participate in those conversations, but it’s very important for the Russians and the Ukrainians to start talking to one another. We think that is the next big step that we would like to take,” he added.
Vance, who said the Russians are seeking “too much” as talks stand, noted that direct communications between the countries matters because a sizeable “gulf” still exists in what Ukraine and Russia respectively want out of negotiations.
“I mentioned the Russians, but also the Ukrainians… they’ve put a piece of paper in our hands that says ‘This is what we would need in order to bring this conflict to a successful resolution from our perspective,’ and there’s a big gulf, predictably, between where the Russians and the Ukrainians are, and we think the next step in the negotiation is to try to close that gulf.”
“We think it’s probably impossible for us to mediate this entirely without at least some direct negotiation between the two, and so that’s what we focus on, but I’m not yet a pessimist on this,” he added.
Moments earlier, Vance spoke to Trump’s “strategic realism, or a strategic insight” in dealing with the negotiations, in that Trump looks to understand both parties’ perspectives on the conflict.
“In other words, you don’t have to agree with the Russian justification for the war, and certainly, both the president and I have criticized the full-scale invasion, but you have to try to understand where the other side is coming from to end the conflict,” he said. “And I think that’s what President Trump has been very deliberate about, is actually forcing the Russians to say, ‘Here is what we would like in order to end the conflict.’
“And again, you don’t have to agree with it. You can think that the request is too significant, and certainly the first peace offer that the Russians put on the table, our reaction to it was, ‘You’re asking for too much,’ but this is how negotiations unfold,” he added.
After highlighting the extreme hate the sides have toward one another that is evident when the United States meets with either side, Vance concluded his remarks on the conflict by noting America wants to reach a deal in which, first and foremost, the carnage ends, but also in which Russia and Ukraine can benefit economically.
“What I’ll say, just to echo something that President Trump has said many times, but I think it bears repeating, is our strong view is that the continuation of this conflict is bad for us. It’s bad for Europe, it’s bad for Russia, and it’s bad for Ukraine,” he said.
“We think that if cool heads prevail here, we can bring this thing to a durable peace that will be economically beneficial for both the Ukrainians and the Russians, and most importantly, will stop the end of the destruction of human lives,” he added.
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