Vice President Vance said imposing new sanctions on Russia to put pressure on President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine is not off the table, urging the United States has options to push on Moscow.
NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked Vance if sanctions are off the table, citing that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he didn’t think new sanctions would force Putin into a ceasefire. Vance replied that the Russians don’t want a ceasefire.
“No, sanctions aren’t off the table. But we’re going to make these determinations on a case-by-case basis. What do we think is actually going to exert the right kind of leverage to bring the Russians to the table? Now, you said sanctions were not going to lead to a ceasefire. I think that’s obviously correct. If you look at the way the Russians have conducted themselves, they don’t want a ceasefire,” Vance said.
He added, “They don’t want a ceasefire for complicated reasons. We, of course, have pushed for a ceasefire. But again, we don’t control what Russia does. If we did, the war would’ve been over seven months ago. 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.”
President Trump on Friday renewed his threat of sanctions on Russia, a week after meeting in Alaska with Putin to discuss an end to the war. He met on Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders, after which he announced he would work on a meeting between Putin and Zelensky.
“A couple of weeks,” Trump said on how long he’ll give Putin. “It takes two to tango, you understand that.”
He added, “Well then I’m going to make a decisions as to what we do. It’s going to be a very important decision. And that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both. Or do we do nothing and say it’s your fight?”
Vance argued on “Meet the Press” that Putin has been open to being flexible and touted that the administration is working through a diplomatic process first to end the war.
“I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in three and a half years of this conflict. 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. “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…We don’t think it’s in Russia or Ukraine’s interest to keep going. So we’re going to keep on pushing for a diplomatic solution.”
The Russians have sent signals that they intend to slow-walk talks with Ukraine about ending the war and expressed doubt about some early prospects of a peace deal.
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