U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, leading a delegation that included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg, met with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14. He told reporters afterwards that he wants to “preserve the optionality” for those working to negotiate an end to the war, and said the goal is for a “durable, lasting peace,” reported CNN. “We had a number of fruitful conversations and a number of things to follow up and work on,” Vance added. “Fundamentally, the goal is as President (Donald) Trump outlined it: We want the war to come to a close. We want the killing to stop, but we want to achieve a durable, lasting peace, not the kind of peace that’s going to have eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road.”
Zelenskyy, for his part, refused to give up the narrative of Russia the aggressor, against which Ukraine needs NATO’s help. “We are very thankful for American support,” Zelenskyy said. “We had good conversations today, our first meeting, not last, I’m sure,” he added. “Really what we need (is) to speak more, to work more, and to prepare the plan how to stop (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and finish the war. Really, we want peace very much, but we need real security guarantees, and we’ll continue our meetings and our work.”
Zelenskyy added that he will be “very happy” to see the U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine and Russia Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg (ret.), in Ukraine “in the closest time.”
