The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war is raging on despite months of negotiation because neither side is willing to reach a peace agreement, Vice President JD Vance said in a
Newsmax interview.
"As much as energetic diplomacy from the president of the United States can get people to the one-yard line, eventually you have to have the two parties who are willing to cut a deal," the vice president told Newsmax's Greta Van Susteren, host of "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."
"And right now, for all of our work, and we're going to keep on working at it, the Russians and the Ukrainians are just not at the point where they can make a deal," he said.
However, Vance said he thinks a settlement is still possible, but it will take "a lot more work" to get to that point.
"I think there's a fundamental misalignment of expectations, where the Russians tend to think that they're doing better on the battlefield than they actually are," he said.
And that has made it harder to reach an agreement in the past few months, Vance said, even though there has been progress.
Vance credited President Donald Trump's foreign policy approach for moving negotiations further than they had been under previous administrations.
"You know, I think that the thing that actually works in both cases is the Trump approach to diplomacy, which is energetic, that empowers his people on the ground, that actually encourages them to get a deal done and is willing to explore some unconventional means in order to get the deal done," he said.
Vance pointed out that there has been progress in the war that wouldn't have happened without Trump.
"It turned out, as the president said, I think it surprised all of us, including the president, that this is a particularly tough nut to crack," he said.
Turning to the use of economic tools, Vance said the administration has found tariffs to be more effective than sanctions in influencing Russian behavior.
"You have to separate sanctions from tariffs," he said.
