U.S. Senator Vance: Ukraine should cede territory and negotiate to end Russia-Ukraine war

U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, a Republican from Ohio, said on the 11th that it is difficult for the Russian military to conquer Ukraine, let alone enter other European countries, but he believes that Ukraine should give up part of its territory to end the war with Russia.

NBC News reported that Vance said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin really intends to conquer all of Ukraine and then continue westward into Europe, “looking at the size of the Russian armed forces, I don’t think this guy is capable of achieving these imperialist goals.”

Vance also reiterated that he believed “negotiations will take place” and that Ukraine should be willing to give up part of its territory to end the war. He pointed out that the Russia-Ukraine war will end “the way almost every war ends”, that is, “people negotiate and each party gives up something they don’t want to give up.”

Vance said on a CNN program on the 10th that “accepting that Ukraine will have to cede some territory to the Russians” is in the “best interest of the United States.” In an interview on the 11th, he pointed out that no one could explain to him “how all this would end without some territorial concessions on the borders drawn in 1991.”

Another reporter asked Vance whether he believed the United States should abide by the collective defense principle stipulated in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty if any NATO member state was attacked. “I think we have to live up to that promise if our NATO allies are attacked,” Vance said, but he did not observe any “plausible argument that Putin would attack a NATO ally.”