US Vice President JD Vance has said that his country has made significant progress in mediating a ceasefire deal between Ukraine and Russia.
During an interview that aired late Wednesday night, Vance said that despite the conflict becoming “one of the hardest wars to get wrapped up”, but added that President Donald Trump has remained “laser-focused on finding a solution.
“If people had asked me about the conflict six months ago, I would have said, they are not going to stop fighting-This is going to be like Russia’s Vietnam – 15 years later, they are still going to fight.’ If you asked me a month ago, I would have said we are making incredible progress (towards peace),” he said.
“It’s hard to predict the outcome, but I do think that we have reached the point of diminishing returns for both sides,” he added. He said his country was trying to maintain good relations with both Ukraine and Russia while engaging in “real diplomacy,” rather than offering unconditional, poorly planned support Kyiv received under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
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“Sometimes that means using carrots, and sometimes sticks. But we just have to keep working on it,” he said.
Despite protests from some EU members, Trump went forward and restored direct negotiations with Russia, holding a rare in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier in August.
Though the summit yielded no breakthrough, both sides described the meeting as a positive step towards renewed engagement.
Meanwhile, Trump postponed the second scheduled peace summit with Putin in Budapest and imposed sanctions on two major Russian oil companies. At the same time, he rejected Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call to supply Kyiv with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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