US Vice President J.D. Vance gave assurances today that Washington is seeking "lasting" peace in Ukraine during his first meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has sought a "roadmap" to resolve the conflict before any negotiations with Russia.
Talks between the Ukrainian head of state and US President Donald Trump's envoy are eagerly awaited in Kiev after the shock caused by Trump's phone call with Vladimir Putin this week.
There were no major announcements from the meeting between Vance and Zelensky, which lasted about 40 minutes, about how to plan to emerge from Europe's most difficult conflict since World War II.
Vance said that President Trump's administration is committed to achieving lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.
"The basic goal is, as President Trump said, we want the war to end. We want the killing to stop. Not the kind of peace that will continue the conflict in Eastern Europe in just a few years," Vance said after the meetings.
The Ukrainian president wrote on the X network that they are "ready to move forward as quickly as possible towards a real and guaranteed peace" and welcomed the "determination" of Donald Trump, who, he added, "can contribute to ending the war."
Vance and Zelensky assured that they had a "good conversation" about how to achieve the goals and that other discussions would follow "in the coming days, weeks and months," according to the US vice president.
The phone call between Trump and Putin and the announced desire to exert pressure to hold negotiations on Ukraine have raised fears in Kiev and Europe that the conflict could be resolved to their detriment.
Before the world's diplomatic elite in Munich, the Ukrainian head of state set out his conditions for dialogue with Russia.
"I will meet with the Russians, only one Russian, Putin, but only when we have a common plan with Trump, with Europe," he said.
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Trump said earlier that he does not have a "ready-made plan" to end the war at this time.
Vance had earlier addressed the Munich Conference in a speech that everyone had been eagerly awaiting, when he barely touched on the Ukrainian issue and instead launched into criticism against censorship and the decline of freedom of speech in European countries.
He previously assured Europeans that they "of course" have room for possible peace talks but that they need to take on more responsibilities within NATO to "share" the burden of defense on the continent.
"It's time to invest because you can't assume that the American presence will last forever," he said.
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