Vance Urges Ukraine and Russia to Make a Peace Deal or U.S. ‘Will Walk Away’ From Talks

Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday said the United States is willing to walk away from peace negotiations if Russia and Ukraine can’t come to an agreement.

Following the now-infamous Oval Office shouting match that saw both Vance and President Donald Trump berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Vance has taken point for the U.S. as it attempts to work out a deal to end Ukraine’s war with Russia. So far, those talks have yet to bear fruit.

As a result of that lack of progress, Vance made it clear that the U.S.’s patience was running thin. While speaking to reports during his trip in India, Vance said:

Well, I’m gonna echo something Secretary [Marco Rubio], which is, look, 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. 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. What do Ukrainians care the most about? What do the Russians care the most about? And I think that we put together a very fair proposal. We’re gonna see if the Europeans, the Russians and the Ukrainians are ultimately able to get this thing over the finish line.

Again, I feel pretty optimistic about it. I think everybody has been negotiating in good faith; but 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 parties saying, “We’re gonna stop the killing; we’re gonna freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today; and we’re gonna actually put in place the kind of long-term diplomatic settlement that hopefully will lead to long-term peace.”

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