Russia "made significant concessions" to Trump on Ukraine talks, Vance says
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Vice President JD Vance and President Trump as he talks in the Oval Office on August 22 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Trump has "a lot of cards left to play to apply pressure" to end the Russia-Ukraine war, Vice President JD Vance said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
The big picture: Vance said on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that he didn't think Moscow was stringing Trump along after Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a separate interview on the same show that no leaders' meeting had been planned between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, which the U.S. president has been pressing for.
- "Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky, when the agenda would be ready for a summit," Lavrov said in the interview that was taped Friday. "And this agenda is not ready at all."
- Zelensky said Friday "the Russians are trying to do anything to avoid the meeting" because "they do not want to end the war" on Ukraine.
What they're saying: "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 said.
- "They've actually been willing to be flexible on some of their core demands. They've talked about what would be necessary to end the war. Of course, they haven't been completely there yet, or the war would be over. But we're engaging in this diplomatic process in good faith," he said.
- "They've recognized that they're not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv. That was, of course, a major demand at the beginning. And importantly, they've acknowledged that there is going to be some security guarantee to the territorial integrity of Ukraine."
Zoom in: NBC's Kristen Welker asked Vance during the interview if imposing sanctions on Russia was off the table after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that he doesn't believe new penalties would force Putin to accept a ceasefire.
- "No, sanctions aren't off the table," Vance said. "But we're going to make these determinations on a case by case basis.
- "If you look at the way the Russians have conducted themselves, they don't want a ceasefire. They don't want a ceasefire for complicated reasons," he added.
- "We, of course, have pushed for a ceasefire. But again, we don't control what Russia does. ... What we do believe though is that we continue to have a lot of cards. The president of the United States has a lot of cards left to play to apply pressure to try to bring this conflict to a close, and that's what we're going to do."
Of note: Welker asked Vance if Russian airstrikes that hit an electronics factory owned by a U.S.-based company had "enraged" him.
- "I don't like it," Vance said. "But this is a war, and this is why we want to stop the killing. The Russians have done a lot of things that we don't like. ... What I'm enraged by is the continuation of the war."
More from Axios:
- Trump hails Ukrainians' "unbreakable spirit" in letter to Zelensky
- MAGA isolationists brace for details of Ukraine security guarantees
- Why the Putin-Zelensky summit Trump wants will be hard to pull off
- Rubio to lead Ukraine security guarantees talks, with Trump promising air support
Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and further context.
