US Vice President JD Vance has said he doesn't believe Ukraine is capable of defeating Russia militarily, as the Trump administration presses for a deal to end the three-year war. Vance said the US was "making progress" in the negotiations, which are understood to include hefty concessions from Ukraine, including "giving up" annexed Crimea to Vladimir Putin. Speaking on the Charlie Kirk Show podcast, the Vice President said Ukraine wouldn't be able to regain its captured territories by force and criticised the "mainstream" idea that an eventual defeat of Russia would mean a return to the pre-conflict global order.
"I think there's this weird idea among the mainstream media that if this thing goes on for just another few years, the Russians will collapse, the Ukrainians will take their territory back, and everything will go back to the way it was before the war," he said. "That is not the reality we live in." It comes after Putin declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire next week to mark Russia's Victory Day in the Second World War. The Kremlin said the truce, between May 8 and May 10, had been ordered on "humanitarian" grounds but Kyiv accused the aggressor of "parading" an end to the conflict without full commitment.
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