Washington may impose tougher sanctions on Moscow and send U.S. troops to Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin is unwilling to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine in good faith, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday. Vance said the option of sending U.S. troops to Ukraine if Moscow fails to negotiate in good faith remains “on the table,” striking a much tougher tone than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who suggested on Wednesday that the U.S. would not commit forces to resolving the conflict.
“There are economic tools that can be used as leverage, there are certainly military tools that can be used as leverage,” Vance said. “I think this will lead to a deal that will shock a lot of people.”
The clarification comes two days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had a “long and very productive phone call” with Putin, and the two agreed to begin ceasefire talks in Ukraine.
The phone call, along with Trump’s comments that Ukraine is unlikely to regain all of its lost territory or gain NATO membership as part of any potential settlement, stunned European officials and raised concerns that Kiev could be left out of talks about its own future.
“The president is not going to go into this with limitations,” Vance told the WSJ. “He’s going to say, ‘Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal.’”
Vance assured that Washington cares about Ukraine’s sovereignty, adding that a peace deal with Russia could have “any number of formulations, any number of configurations.”
His statements contradicted U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said this week that no U.S. troops would be sent to Ukraine and that it was “unrealistic” for Kiev to seek NATO membership or a return to pre-2014 borders. Hegseth later walked back those statements and said that Trump would ultimately decide on any concessions he would make.
Kremlin surprised by Vance’s claims
The Kremlin appeared surprised by JD Vance’s threats when asked for comment on Friday, according to The Moscow Times.
“We haven’t heard such a formula before — it hasn’t been stated before,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“We expect to receive further clarification.”
The Trump administration’s shifting statements about future peace talks come at a critical time for the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s nearly three-year war against its neighbor is expected to dominate discussions at the Munich Security Conference that began Friday, where Zelensky will meet with JD Vance, Peter Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg.