U.S. Vice President JD Vance visits Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Dachau, Germany February 13, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis
(Reuters) -U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. could hit Moscow with sanctions and potential military action if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not agree to a peace deal with Ukraine that guarantees Kyiv's long-term independence, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
"There are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage" the U.S. could use against Putin, Vance said in an interview with the newspaper.
"There are any number of formulations, of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday discussed the war with Russian President Vladimir Putin and separately with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and told U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the nearly three-year-long conflict.
The phone calls came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Ukraine's military allies in Brussels that a return to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders - before Russia annexed Crimea - was unrealistic and that the U.S. does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of a solution.
Ukrainians on Thursday worried that Trump was preparing to sell out their country following his phone call Putin.
Earlier in the day, Trump said that Ukraine would be involved in peace talks with Russia. He told reporters at the White House that Ukraine would have a seat at the table during any peace negotiations with Russia over ending the war.
Kyiv said it would be premature to speak with Moscow at a security conference on Friday.
“I think there is a deal that is going to come out of this that’s going to shock a lot of people,” the newspaper quoted Vance as saying.
"The president is not going to go in this with blinders on,” Vance said. “He’s going to say, ‘Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal.’”
Vance also agreed that Trump might change his mind depending on how the negotiations unfold.
“President Trump could say, look, we don’t want this thing, we might not like this thing, but we’re willing to put it back on the table if the Russians aren’t being good negotiating partners, or there are things that are very important to Ukrainians that we might want to take off the table,” he said.
(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Michael Perry)
