Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday called on Ukraine to accept an American peace proposal that closely aligns with longstanding Russian goals, including a “freeze” of territorial lines in the three-year war, acceptance of the annexation of Crimea by Russia and a prohibition on Ukraine becoming part of the NATO alliance.
It was the first time a U.S. official had publicly laid out a plan to end the war that favors Russia in such stark terms.
A peace plan that leaves Russian forces deep inside eastern Ukraine would be welcome news in Moscow. President Vladimir V. Putin has said for almost year that he would accept a cease-fire in which Ukraine withdraws troops from the four regions that Russia has claimed as its own and drops its aspirations to join NATO.
The comments by the vice president appeared designed to increase pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has long refused to accept Russian’s occupation of his country’s lands, including the seizure of Crimea in 2014 and territory taken by Russia after it invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
In a second blow to Mr. Zelensky, President Trump lashed out at the Ukrainian president on Wednesday afternoon, writing on Truth Social, his social media site, that “he can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years.”
Mr. Vance, speaking during a trip to India, said the United States would “walk away” from the peace process if both Ukraine and Russia refused to accept the American terms. But Mr. Zelensky was clearly the target.
“We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process,” Mr. Vance told reporters. “The only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing and to get on with the business of actually building a better Russia and a better Ukraine.”
The vice president’s comments came just hours after Mr. Zelensky said his country will never accept Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea as legal, adding that doing so would violate Ukraine’s Constitution. He also said that Ukraine could not accept any prohibition against becoming part of NATO.
“There is nothing to talk about. This violates our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky told reporters in a news conference.
On Wednesday afternoon, Yulia Svyrydenko, the Ukrainian economy minister, also vowed that her country “will never recognize the occupation of Crimea.” Writing on X, the social media site, she said that “Ukraine is ready to negotiate — but not to surrender. There will be no agreement that hands Russia the stronger foundations it needs to regroup and return with greater violence.”
In his statement, Mr. Trump accused Mr. Zelensky of making “inflammatory” statements that he claimed would prolong the war.
“If he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?” Mr. Trump wrote. “The statement made by Zelenskyy today will do nothing but prolong the “killing field,” and nobody wants that!”
The threat by Mr. Vance to walk away from peace talks were similar to comments last week from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and from President Trump, who said in the Oval Office that if the two sides don’t agree quickly to a deal, “we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people, and we’re going to just take a pass.’”
On Wednesday, Mr. Vance told reporters in India that under the American proposal, “We’re going to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today.”
“The current lines, or somewhere close to them, is where you’re ultimately, I think, going to draw the new lines in the conflict,” he added. “Now, of course, that means the Ukrainians and the Russians are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own.”
The vice president did not say what territory Russia would have to give up. Russia currently occupies 18.7 percent of Ukraine, according to DeepState, an online research group with ties to the Ukrainian army.
A freeze would essentially force Ukraine to surrender huge swaths of land to Russia and would violate the principles of self-determination and borders that has animated the United States and European nations to support Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.
A Kremlin spokesman on Wednesday welcomed Mr. Vance’s remarks.
“The United States is continuing its mediation efforts, and we certainly welcome those efforts,” the spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said. “Our interactions are ongoing but, to be sure, there is a lot of nuances around the peace settlement that need to be discussed.”
The aggressive push for a deal by Mr. Trump’s administration is a blow to European leaders, who have spent weeks attempting to shore up Ukraine’s position by brokering peace talks with the United States. The first effort convened last week in Paris and another session was set to start Wednesday in London before Mr. Rubio announced that he would no longer attend.
Mr. Rubio’s decision to cancel caught the British government off guard, according to a British official who said that David Lammy, the foreign secretary, had fully expected the secretary of state in London on Wednesday.
Lower-level diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, Ukraine, and the United States still gathered for technical talks. But the absence of Mr. Rubio or Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s chief negotiator with Russia, renewed fears that Ukraine and Europe were being marginalized as the Trump administration seemed to be working primarily with Russia.
Mr. Witkoff is scheduled to be in Moscow later this week, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday.
Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, arrived in London Wednesday morning for the scaled-back talks, along with his country’s ministers of defense and foreign affairs.
“Despite everything,” he wrote on X, the social media platform, after arriving, “we continue working for peace.”
Even before his comments Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky had expressed his opposition to the American demands in a conversation with the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, according to an official familiar with the conversation. Mr. Zelensky laid out his positions on Crimea and NATO, the official said, and Mr. Rutte later called Mr. Trump and conveyed Mr. Zelensky’s answer.
Instead of participating in a larger meeting, Mr. Lammy met one-on-one with the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, while the British defense secretary, John Healey, met his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov. Mr. Lammy also dropped in on a lunch that included senior national security advisers from Britain, France, and Germany, as well as the Ukrainian delegation and General Kellogg.
Reporting was contributed by Ségolène Le Stradic from Paris; Steven Erlanger and Anton Troianovski from Berlin; Nataliya Vasilyeva from Istanbul; and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine.
