Vice President J.D. Vance credits Russia with making concessions in peace talks

Vice President J.D. Vance said Sunday that Russia has made “significant concessions” in the ongoing negotiations to end its war with Ukraine.

Mr. Vance said President Trump remains focused on ending the bloodshed, a week after his historic meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin ended without a concrete deal in place.

“I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in three and a half years of this conflict,” Mr. Vance said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They’ve actually been willing to be flexible on some of their core demands.”

“We’re engaging in this diplomatic process in good faith,” the vice president said. “We are trying to negotiate as much as we can with both the Russians and the Ukrainians to find a middle ground to stop the killing,”

Mr. Vance said Russia has conceded that “Ukraine will have territorial integrity after the war,” “that they’re not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv,” and “acknowledged that there is going to be some security guarantee to the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

Mr. Trump vowed on the campaign trail last year that he would end the Russian war in Ukraine on “Day One.” He has since stated that he was not speaking literally and has been open about how bringing an end to the conflict has been more difficult than he expected.

Russia has continued to strike Ukraine, including last week when missiles hit an American electronics factory in western Ukraine.

Mr. Vance said that unfortunately, it goes with the territory.

“If you look historically, whenever you have a complicated war with a lot of death and destruction, it kind of goes in fits and starts,” Mr. Vance said. “There are hills and valleys to the negotiation.”

“We sometimes feel like we’ve made great progress with the Russians, and sometimes, as the president has said, he’s been very frustrated with the Russians,” he said.

Mr. Vance credited Mr. Trump with focusing on ending the war, not on why it started. He also said President Biden “did nothing” to end the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.