By Jack Phillips
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Aug. 24 that Moscow has made “significant concessions” toward reaching a peace deal to end the more than three-year-long conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
In an interview with NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” the vice president said Russian President Vladimir Putin made multiple concessions toward reaching a deal with Kyiv, including one that allows Ukraine to receive security guarantees to ward off future attacks.
Vance said that the Russians have “recognized that they’re not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv,” noting it was “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,” he said.
“Have they made every concession? Of course, they haven’t. We’re making progress.”
Vance’s comments were made more than a week after Trump met with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, to negotiate a deal over ending the war. Late last week, Trump renewed a threat to impose sanctions on Russia if there was no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks.
In his Sunday morning interview, Vance said sanctions targeting Russia would be considered on a case-by-case basis, acknowledging that new penalties were unlikely to prompt Russia to agree to a cease-fire with Ukraine.
“He’s tried to make it clear that Russia can be reinvited into the world economy if they stop the killing, but they’re going to continue to be isolated if they don’t stop the killing,” Vance said, referring to Trump’s previous warnings.
On Aug. 22, Trump told reporters that he was frustrated with Russia over strikes that it had launched against Ukraine in prior days and signaled that a decision will be made soon.
“I think over the next two weeks, we’re going to find out which way it’s going to go,” Trump said in a press event in the Oval Office. “And I better be very happy.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview broadcast on Aug. 24 that a group of nations including United Nations Security Council members should be the guarantors of Ukraine’s security.
“And the guarantors would be guaranteeing the security of Ukraine, which must be neutral, which must be non-aligned with any military bloc and which must be non-nuclear,” Lavrov told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” according to a transcript of the interview released by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Lavrov also made it clear that NATO membership for Ukraine was unacceptable for Russia, that Russia wanted protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine, and that there was a territorial discussion to be had with Ukraine.
The Russian foreign minister also said in the interview that he believes that European Union members are still pushing for the Ukraine war to persist and added that Trump is using another approach.
“And I don’t have any doubt that President Trump respects the same attitude of President Putin to protecting the national interests of Russia, to protecting basic interests of the Russian citizens, including the right to be a nation which has very rich history, very rich traditions,” he added.
Reuters contributed to this report.
