The US announced on Monday that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” begin negotiations on a ceasefire, mentioning the Vatican as a potential location for the talks.
The White House said US President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin for about two hours, after speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier in the day. In response to Kyiv Post’s questions, a State Department official confirmed in the background that Trump also spoke with European leaders without offering further details.
According to the White House, the Vatican, as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations.
The move came just hours after Pope Leo XIV met with Vice President JD Vance in the Vatican for a closed-door meeting to discuss the church’s role as a mediator in global conflicts, including, Vance said, between Ukraine and Russia.
Following the Pope’s inaugural Mass on Sunday, the Pope and Vance each met privately with Zelensky separately.
Speaking to reporters in Air Force Two en route to Washington just before the Trump-Putin call, Vance said that there are “so many different things” that are obstacles that it’s hard to pinpoint one in particular.
“Look, I think one open question is, ‘Is Vladimir Putin serious about negotiating peace?’ Right? He has made some concessions. He has taken some serious steps in these conversations. But we feel like, you know, we’re at a point where we’re hitting an impasse, and that’s why the president is talking to him on the phone,” Vance said.
He added that he thinks Putin “doesn’t quite know how to get out of the war.”
“If you think about this, he’s got a million men under arms.” said Vance. “He’s re-engineered his entire economy, what used to be manufacturing facilities making products for people to use in their civilian life. They’re now making tank shells and artillery shells and drones. And so this is a little bit of a guess, but I think the President [Trump] would agree that part of this is, I’m not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war.”
He also highlighted “fundamental mistrust” between Russia and the West. “It’s one of the things the President [Trump] thinks is, frankly, stupid, that we should be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been made in the past. But that takes two to tango,” Vance said.
Asked whether the US was open to walking away from Russia-Ukraine negotiations, Vance said, the first major outcome the White House wanted to see was that “we wanted the Russians, the Ukrainians, to put a real peace proposal on the table.”
The second thing is, “they needed to agree to direct talks with one another,” he said.
“If you’re willing to stop the killing, the United States is willing to be a partner for peace. That’s been the proposal to the Russians, to the Ukrainians, and, frankly, to nations and other hot spots around the world,” Vance concluded.