US Vice President JD Vance said that Russia has been “flexible” in negotiations to end its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, claiming that the Kremlin has in fact made “significant concessions” in its demands.
“I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in three and a half years of this conflict,” Vance told the iconic weekly news program “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired on Sunday.
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The show’s guests also included Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Senator Adam Schiff, Democrat of California.
Vance’s position was that Russia was not dragging its heels in these talks, as many have argued in Ukraine and in the West, but was being a productive partner.
“They’ve actually been willing to be flexible on some of their core demands,” Vance said.
He noted that one of those concessions include “the recognition that Ukraine will have territorial integrity after the war” without specifying which territories might be retained by Ukraine in such a settlement.
Vance thought another generous gesture on the part of Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin was his recognition “that they’re not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv.”
Ukraine kicked out its last Kremlin-puppet president, Vikor Yanukovych, during the deadly Euromaidan protests against his corrupt and autocratic leadership and anti-EU positions in 2014.
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Yanukovych fled to Russia on Feb. 21, 2014, the day after Moscow illegally annexed Crimea.
During his talks with US President Donald Trump in Alaska earlier this month, Putin made it clear to Trump that retuning Crimea to Ukrainian hands (as well as NATO membership) were strictly off the table and Trump has infused that position into his administration’s talking points as well.
“Again, have they made every concession?” Vance asked rhetorically in the interview. “Of course, they haven’t. But we’re making progress.”
Lavrov by contrast, told the shows’ host Kristen Welker that the West, especially Europe, was trying to “block” peace negotiations.
According to Trump, Putin in Alaska noted he was open to the idea of individual security guarantees between Kyiv and its respective partners in order to support any peace deal. But when NATO leaders met last week to discuss what those security measures would look like, the Kremlin did a 180-degree turn, saying that any discussions about Western security forces in Ukraine without Moscow’s stamp of approval was merely wishful thinking on Europe’s part.
Vance on Sunday said Washington would continue to develop plans for Ukrainian security guarantees, but insisted “the president’s been very clear: there are not going to be boots on the ground in Ukraine.”
On the same program, Schiff described the Trump-Putin summit as a failure that allowed the Russian leader to walk away with no ceasefire and a diminished threat of sanctions.
“So they strung him along successfully,” Schiff said, adding he believes that peace talks have “stalled.”
The Democrat also slammed Russia’s recent bombing of a US-owned factory in Ukraine as a provocative, “in-your-face” action against Trump, who has expressed little outrage about the incident other than to say he is “not happy.”
Lavrov also answered questions about the attack, saying that many in the West are “really naive” to think the factory was not involved in Ukraine’s military effort.
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