Vice President JD Vance urged Russia to face facts in the ongoing Ukraine war, stressing that the US keeps working toward peace. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Vance said, “We want peace here. We’ve been pushing for it since the start of this administration, but the Russians have got to wake up and accept reality.”
His comments came after President Donald Trump shared a bold take earlier in the week. On his Truth Social platform Tuesday, Trump called Russia a “paper tiger” and said Ukraine stands a real chance to win back all its land with help from the European Union. “After getting to know the full Ukraine-Russia military and economic situation—and seeing the economic pain it’s causing Russia—I think Ukraine, with EU support, is in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump posted.
Trump recently chatted with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the edges of the United Nations General Assembly. That’s according to The Hill. But Trump has also floated the idea before that Ukraine might need to give up some territory for any peace deal to stick.
Right now, Russia holds all of Luhansk and Crimea—which Moscow grabbed in 2014—plus chunks of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. The full-scale Russia-Ukraine invasion kicked off in February 2022, and the human cost has been brutal. A June report from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates more than 250,000 Russian soldiers and 60,000 to 100,000 Ukrainian troops have died.
Civilians are suffering too. The United Nations said on September 10 that over 14,100 Ukrainian civilians have lost their lives. An independent Russian outlet, The Moscow Times—now based in Amsterdam—reported in May that more than 620 Russian civilians have also been killed.
Vance pointed to the rising death toll and said Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t even sit down with Trump and Zelensky. Last month, after Trump met with Zelensky and European leaders at the White House, he sounded hopeful about setting up a three-way talk. “A lot of people are dying,” Vance added. “They don’t have much to show for it. How many more lives are they willing to lose or take for so little gain on the battlefield?”
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