Vance Says Sending US Troops To Ukraine 'On The Table' Ahead Of Russian Peace Talks

Vice President JD Vance said putting American boots on the ground in Ukraine is "on the table" if Russian President Vladimir Putin rejects a peace deal with the war-torn country that provides long-term independence for Kyiv.

Vance said sending U.S. troops to Ukraine is among the options, including sanctions, the Trump administration is considering if Putin fails to negotiate in good faith an end to the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2022.

"There are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage" the U.S. could use against Putin, Vance told the Wall Street Journal.

The vice president spoke with the newspaper after President Donald Trump said he would begin negotiations with Putin to end the three-year-old war and as he was on his way to attend a global security conference in Munich.

"I think there is a deal that is going to come out of this that's going to shock a lot of people," Vance said about the negotiations.

"The president is not going to go in this with blinders on. He's going to say, 'Everything is on the table, let's make a deal,'" said Vance, who will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the summit.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a meeting with NATO officials and Ukrainian defense ministers on Wednesday that it would be "an unrealistic objective" to allow Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders.

Vance told the Wall Street Journal that it was too soon to determine whether Ukraine would have to cede territory to Russia, saying that would be among the details sorted out in the talks.

"There are any number of formulations, of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence," Vance said.

At the NATO meeting, Hegseth said "what concessions will be made or what concessions will not be made" will be up to Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Vance said it's difficult to predict how Trump will respond to the talks with Putin.

"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.