logo
JD Vance says Ukraine peace deal unlikely to satisfy either side

JD Vance says Ukraine peace deal unlikely to satisfy either side

Indian Express3 days ago
US Vice President JD Vance said a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely to satisfy either side, and any peace deal will likely leave both Moscow and Kyiv 'unhappy.'
He said the US is aiming for a settlement both countries can accept.
'It's not going to make anybody super happy. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians, probably, at the end of the day, are going to be unhappy with it,' he said in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 in Alaska to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
Trump said Russia and Ukraine were close to a ceasefire deal that could end the three-and-a-half-year conflict, possibly requiring Ukraine to surrender significant territory.
Zelenskyy, however, said Saturday that Ukraine cannot violate its constitution on territorial issues, adding, 'Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupiers.'
In the Fox News interview recorded on Friday, Vance said the United States was working to schedule talks between Putin, Zelenskyy, and Trump, but he did not think it would be productive for Putin to meet with Zelenskyy before speaking with Trump.
'We're at a point now where we're trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that, around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict,' he said.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

PM Modi May Visit New York for Possible UNGA Speech Amid Ongoing Trump Tariff Dispute
PM Modi May Visit New York for Possible UNGA Speech Amid Ongoing Trump Tariff Dispute

Hans India

time18 minutes ago

  • Hans India

PM Modi May Visit New York for Possible UNGA Speech Amid Ongoing Trump Tariff Dispute

Indian PM Modi US visit in September for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting to be held in New York City. India's 'Head of Government (HG)' is set to speak at the high-level debate of the 80th session of the General Assembly on the morning of September 26, news agency PTI reported, citing the provisional list of speakers. Heads of Government of Israel, China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, among others, are also expected to address the PM Modi UNGA 2025 general debate on September 26. If PM Modi's New York trip in September, it would come at a time when the US has hiked tariffs on New Delhi to 50 per cent for its purchases of Russian crude oil, which US President Donald Trump has said has 'fueled' Moscow's war in Ukraine. Trump tariff row India US on most imports from India for the purchase of Russian oil. That additional levy, on top of the 25 per cent tariff he already announced, would bring the duties on products and goods that India exports to the US to 50 per cent if fully applied. The executive order Trump signed on the grounds that the purchase of oil by India from Russia threatens UN General Assembly address Modi into effect on August 27, leaving a three-week window to work out a deal. In a sharply worded statement, the MEA said, 'It is extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest.' Also, a US trade delegation will be coming to India before August 25. The two countries have been sniping at each other about tariffs. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said, '"I am pleased to announce that President Vladimir Putin of Russia and I will meet on Friday, August 15, 2025, in Alaska. More information about the meeting will be shared soon." Thank you for your attention to India US relations 2025!' he added.

Alaska's Russian ties in spotlight as Trump, Putin meet in the 49th state
Alaska's Russian ties in spotlight as Trump, Putin meet in the 49th state

Business Standard

time18 minutes ago

  • Business Standard

Alaska's Russian ties in spotlight as Trump, Putin meet in the 49th state

When US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, it will be the latest chapter in the 49th state's long history with Russia and with international tensions. Siberian fur traders arrived from across the Bering Sea in the first part of the 18th century, and the imprint of Russian settlement in Alaska remains. The oldest building in Anchorage is a Russian Orthodox church, and many Alaska Natives have Russian surnames. The nations are so close Alaska's Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait is less than 5 kilometres from Russia's Big Diomede that former Gov. Sarah Palin was right during the 2008 presidential race when she said, You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, though the comment prompted jokes that that was the extent of her foreign policy experience. Alaska has been US territory since 1867, and it has since been the location of the only World War II battle on North American soil, a focus of Cold War tensions and the site of occasional meetings between US and world leaders. Here's a look at Alaska's history with Russia and on the international stage: Russian trappers and Seward's Folly The fur traders established hubs in Sitka and on Kodiak Island. The Russian population in Alaska never surpassed about 400 permanent settlers, according to the Office of the Historian of the US State Department. Russian settlers brutally coerced Alaska Natives to harvest sea otters and other marine mammals for their pelts, said Ian Hartman, a University of Alaska Anchorage history professor. It was a relationship that the Russians made clear quite early on was not really about kind of a longer-term pattern of settlement, but it was much more about a short-term pattern of extraction, Hartman said. Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox missionaries baptized an estimated 18,000 Alaska Natives. By 1867 the otters had been hunted nearly to extinction and Russia was broke from the Crimean War. Czar Alexander II sold Alaska to the US for the low price of $7.2 million knowing Russia couldn't defend its interests in Alaska if the US or Great Britain tried to seize it. Sceptics referred to the purchase as Seward's Folly, after US Secretary of State William H. Seward. That changed when gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1896. World War II and the Cold War The US realised Alaska's strategic importance in the 20th century. During World War II the island of Attu the westernmost in the Aleutian chain and closer to Russia than to mainland North America was captured by Japanese forces. The effort to reclaim it in 1943 became known as the war's forgotten battle. During the Cold War, military leaders worried Soviets might attack via Alaska, flying planes over the North Pole to drop nuclear weapons. They built a chain of radar systems connected to an anti-aircraft missile system. The military constructed much of the infrastructure in Alaska, including roads and some communities, and its experience building on permafrost later informed the private companies that would drill for oil and construct the trans-Alaska pipeline. Last year the Pentagon said the US must invest more to upgrade sensors, communications and space-based technologies in the Arctic to keep pace with China and Russia, and it sent about 130 soldiers to a desolate Aleutian island amid an increase in Russian military planes and vessels approaching US territory. Past visits by dignitaries Putin will be the first Russian leader to visit, but other prominent figures have come before him. Japanese Emperor Hirohito stopped in Anchorage before heading to Europe in 1971 to meet President Richard Nixon, and in 1984 thousands turned out to see President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II meet at the airport in Fairbanks. President Barack Obama visited in 2015, becoming the first sitting US president to set foot north of the Arctic Circle, on a trip to highlight the dangers of climate change. Gov. Bill Walker welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping at the airport in Anchorage in 2017 and then took him on a short tour of the state's largest city. Four years later Anchorage was the setting for a less cordial meeting as top US and Chinese officials held two days of contentious talks in their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office two months earlier. Critics say Alaska is a poor choice for the summit Sentiment toward Russia in Alaska has cooled since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously to suspend its three-decade-long sister city relationship with Magadan, Russia, and the Juneau Assembly sent its sister city of Vladivostock a letter expressing concern. The group Stand Up Alaska has organised rallies against Putin on Thursday and Friday. Dimitry Shein, who ran unsuccessfully for Alaska's lone seat in the US House in 2018, fled from the Soviet Union to Anchorage with his mother in the early 1990s. He expressed dismay that Trump has grown increasingly authoritarian. Russia and the US are just starting to look more and more alike, he said. Many observers have suggested that holding the summit in Alaska sends a bad symbolic message. It's easy to imagine Putin making the argument during his meetings with Trump that, Well, look, territories can change hands,' said Nigel Gould-Davies, former British Ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. 'We gave you Alaska. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Before Trump talks to Putin, Germany and others want to bend his ear
Before Trump talks to Putin, Germany and others want to bend his ear

Economic Times

time18 minutes ago

  • Economic Times

Before Trump talks to Putin, Germany and others want to bend his ear

NYT News Service FILE -- President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia during a joint news conference in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. President Trump is pushing to end the war in Ukraine, but analysts say the Russian leader could turn a hastily-planned meeting to his advantage. President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska, to discuss a path to ending the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine 3 1/2 years ago. Before he does, his European allies would like to have a word. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany will convene a Ukraine-themed video call Wednesday that is set to include Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and several of Trump's favorite European leaders, including Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni of Italy. A wide range of public statements from Merz and others suggest the leaders will implore Trump not to cut a peace deal with Putin behind the backs of Zelenskyy or his European allies. Zelenskyy has not been invited to Alaska. The European leaders will likely stress that any discussions of terms for ending the war must start with a full ceasefire. They also believe that Europe's approval is essential for any plans to enforce a truce with European troops. It will be the latest attempt by Merz and his European counterparts to head off Trump's unilateral impulses and to keep him from falling under Putin's sway -- though Merz and his allies almost never frame it that way. Instead, the center-right chancellor and fellow leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, regularly portray themselves as closely aligned with Trump on Ukraine, even as they publicly and privately encourage him to do more to support officials in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. "We cannot accept that territorial issues between Russia and America are discussed or even decided over the heads of Europeans, over the heads of Ukrainians," Merz said in a television interview Sunday. "I assume that the American government sees it the same way. That is why there is this close coordination." Merz has staked much of his early term on rebuilding Germany's military and reclaiming its leadership position for Europe and the world, with a firm gaze toward Russia. He has courted Trump aggressively since taking office in early May, with text messages, phone calls, international summits and an Oval Office visit. He has relentlessly pitched Trump on the idea that by intervening boldly and decisively on the side of Ukraine against Russia, the United States could force Putin into a ceasefire and serious talks on ending the war. It has been the chancellor's primary request of the president, overwhelming other major issues, like Trump's push to impose new tariffs on Europe. Trump seemed receptive, to varying degrees, particularly as he grew frustrated in recent months with Putin's continued bombardments of Ukraine. He agreed to sell American weapons to Germany and others, to then be supplied to Kyiv, and he has threatened harsh economic penalties on Moscow if the war continues. But then, last week, after overtures from Putin, Trump shifted again. He hastily scheduled the Alaska meeting. This week, he told reporters he wanted to see what Putin had on his mind, and whether he could broker "a deal" on the war, including swaps of land currently held by Ukraine and Russia. Merz and his allies fear what that discussion could bring. So they have stacked the video call with top Europeans who enjoy good relations with Trump, including the leaders of Poland and Finland and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. European leaders refuse to entertain any talk of redrawing borders before Putin agrees to a ceasefire. They do not want to negotiate away Ukrainian land that Russian forces do not currently hold. German officials have been more publicly oblique on whether they could support a truce that cedes some parts of prewar Ukraine to Russia, though privately, they have sounded resigned to the possibility. They also worry that peace on bad terms could encourage Putin to continue his push toward Western Europe, perhaps sending troops next to a neighbor like Lithuania, a member of NATO. "It really is a concern that Putin might feel emboldened," said Anna Sauerbrey, the foreign editor for Germany's Die Zeit newspaper. "Not to go for Berlin, of course, but to cause some unrest in other Baltic countries, other European countries." Above all, Europeans fear that Putin could use the Alaska meeting to sell Trump on a peace deal that Zelenskyy would never accept, leading Trump to turn his ire on the Ukrainian leader. Trump could then threaten to pull crucial American intelligence support for Ukraine on the battlefield, as his administration briefly did this spring. Europe would continue to back Ukraine in that case, but its task would be far more difficult. Merz and other leaders have acknowledged the need for American support. Sauerbrey said that reality puts European leaders in a "very weak position" to negotiate with Trump. "They can hope and pray" and continue to flatter him, she said. "But that's pretty much all they have." This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store