Vice President JD Vance said that the United States is prepared to “walk away” from facilitating peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
“We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes, or for the United States to walk away from this process,” Vance told reporters. “We’ve engaged in an extraordinary amount of diplomacy, of on-the-ground work, we’ve really tried to understand things from the perspective of both the Ukrainians and the Russians.”
“I think we’ve put together a very fair proposal,” Vance stated, noting he feels “pretty optimistic about it.”
“It’s now time, I think, to take, if not the final step, one of the final steps, which is, at a broad level, the party saying we’re going to stop the killing, we’re going to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today,” he explained. “Now, of course, that means the Ukrainians and the Russians are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own.”
Similar comments were made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Discussing peace negotiations, Rubio said that countries involved “need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable in the – over the next few weeks. If it is, we’re in. If it’s not, then we’ll have to – we have other priorities to focus on as well.”
Rubio reiterated that “we need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on, from our perspective.”
