JD Vance has said thatRussiais asking for “too much” in its negotiations withUkrainein the latest sign ofgrowing frustration from Washingtonwith ceasefire talks to end the war between the two countries.
Speaking at a security conference of senior military and diplomatic leaders in Washington, the US vice-president said that the White House is focused on getting the two sides to hold direct talks and is ready to walk away if certain benchmarks are not reached.
“I wouldn’t say that the Russians are uninterested in bringing this thing to a resolution,” Vance said during an onstage interview with the Munich security council president, Wolfgang Ischinger.
“What I would say is, right now, the Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions in order to end the conflict. We think they’re asking for too much. OK?”
Asked about those comments later on Wednesday,Donald Trumpsaid: “It’s possible that’s right.”
“We are getting to a point where some decisions are going to have to be made,” said the US president. “I’m not happy about it … I’m not happy about it.”
Senior administration officials, including Vance and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, are said to be growing more frustrated over Russia’s inflexibility in discussions to end the war. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, has held four rounds ofdirect talks with Putin, but those have not yielded concrete concessions from the Russian side.
During his remarks, Vance reiterated the threat that the White House would “walk away if [Trump] thinks he’s not making progress”.
“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,” he 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.”
Aftermeeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Vatican last month, Trump threatened Russia with secondary sanctions over the continued bombardments of Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities despite talks to reach a permanent ceasefire.
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days,” Trump wrote then. “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently.”
Senior Russian officials have maintained a hardline position, demanding both a rollback of Nato as well as limits on Ukraine’s security and a degree of control over its internal politics.
“Marco Rubio expressed yesterday, I think, also the assessment that they had the American team now is getting a better understanding of the Russian position and of the root causes of this situation,” said Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, during an interview on Meet the Press last week. “One of this root causes, apart from Nato and creation of direct military threats to Russia just on our borders, another one is the rights of the national minorities in Ukraine.”
Joe Biden in his first interview since leaving officeaccused Trump of “modern-day appeasement”, saying the expectations that Ukraine ceding territory to Russia would end the war was “foolish”.