Zelenskyy and Vance met at the Munich Security Conference where many observers, particularly in Europe, hoped that Vance will shed some light on US President Donald Trump's ideas for a negotiated settlement to the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting with US Vice President JD Vance stated that he will agree to meet in-person with Russian President Vladimir Putin with the condition that a common plan will be negotiated with US President Trump and Europe first. Zelenskyy also said that his country wants “security guarantees” before any talks to end the Ukraine-Russia war advances.
Zelenskyy and Vance met at the Munich Security Conference where many observers, particularly in Europe, hope that Vance will shed some light on US President Donald Trump's ideas for a negotiated settlement to the war.
After a 40-minute meeting with Zelenskyy, Vance said the Trump administration wants the war to end.
While speaking to Vance, Zelenskyy reportedly said, "I will meet with Russians -- with only one Russian guy, with Putin -- only after we will have a common plan with Trump, Europe." "Only in this case I'm ready to meet," he added.
According to Zelenskyy, Trump is the key to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and he said the US president gave him his telephone number before Friday's opening of the Munich Security Conference.
Trump upended years of steadfast US support for Ukraine this week following a phone call with Putin.
In his own remarks to the conference, Vance lectured European officials on free speech and illegal migration on the continent, warning elected officials that they risk losing public support if they don't quickly change course.
Vance in his speech mentioned the 3-year-old war in Ukraine and it came at a time of intense concern and uncertainty over the Trump administration's foreign policy.
“In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump's leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square,” Vance said to tepid applause.
The vice president also warned the European officials against illegal migration, saying that the electorate didn't vote to open “floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants" and referencing an attack Thursday in Munich where the suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan who arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2016.
The violence left more than 30 people injured and appears to have had an Islamist extremist motive.
Hours before Vance and Zelenskyy were set to meet, a Russian drone with a high-explosive warhead hit the protective confinement shell of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Kyiv region, the Ukrainian president said. Radiation levels have not increased, Zelenskyy and the UN atomic agency said.
Zelenskyy in Munich told reporters that he thinks the Chernobyl drone strike is a “very clear greeting from Putin and Russian Federation to the security conference.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday denied Ukraine's claims. And Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the Munich organisers haven't invited Russia for several years.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was expected to join Vance and Zelenskyy. He was delayed when his Air Force plane had to return to Washington after developing a mechanical problem en route to Munich. He took a different aircraft and was expected to arrive in time for the meeting.
Trump, who upended years of steadfast US support for Ukraine during his call with Putin on Wednesday, has been vague about his specific intentions — other than suggesting that a deal will likely result in Ukraine being forced to cede territory that Russia has seized since it annexed Crimea in 2014.
“The Ukraine war has to end,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “Young people are being killed at levels that nobody's seen since World War II. And it's a ridiculous war.”
Both Trump and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth this week undercut Ukraine's hopes of becoming part of NATO, which the alliance said less than a year ago was “irreversible,” or of getting back its territory captured by Russia, which currently occupies close to 20 per cent including Crimea.
“I don't see any way that a country in Russia's position could allow ... them to join NATO,” Trump said Thursday. “I don't see that happening.”
Zelenskyy, in his own remarks during the conference, said the United States, including the Biden administration, never saw Ukraine as a NATO member.
Vance, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, said that the US would hit Moscow with sanctions and potentially military action if Putin won't agree to a peace deal with Ukraine that guarantees Kyiv's long-term independence.
The warning that military options “remain on the table” was striking language from a Trump administration that's repeatedly underscored a desire to quickly end the war.
Vance's team later pushed back on the newspaper's report.
Zelenskyy won't accept agreements made without Ukraine
The US reassurances may have somewhat allayed Zelenskyy's fears, although they will not replace any lost military or economic support that President Joe Biden's administration had provided.
The Ukrainian leader conceded Thursday that it was “not very pleasant” that Trump spoke first to Putin. But he said the main issue was to “not allow everything to go according to Putin's plan.”
“We cannot accept it, as an independent country, any agreements (made) without us,” Zelenskyy said as he visited a nuclear power plant in western Ukraine.
(With AP inputs)