U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said in an interview with the TV channel 2WAY TONIGHT that Ukraine should not join NATO, the Ukrainska Prawda news site reported Tuesday morning.
“As far as I know, we do not have an official alliance agreement with Ukraine. (…) Ukraine should not join NATO,” the American vice president said. He added that cooperation with Kyiv will grow in some areas, but that in other matters “positions will diverge.”
Vance also repeated the Washington administration’s earlier demands that Ukraine “must halt attacks on Russian energy facilities.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Bloomberg on Sunday that, in his view, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had taken steps meant to push Ukraine into capitulation. He proposed that Ukraine stop attacking refineries in Russia if it receives more missiles for Patriot launchers.
U.S. President Donald Trump is demanding that Ukraine stop attacking Russia’s oil sector. In the first half of October, Trump struck a deal with Russia on diesel deliveries. “We need oil for the world. It’s diesel, which is what the world needs,” Trump said on Oct. 10, after talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Under the agreement, Russia is to deliver nearly 5 million tons of diesel fuel. Among other things, it results in the suspension of U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027.
Zelenskyy will arrive in Oslo on Tuesday for talks on ending the war with Russia, the Norwegian government said, confirming media reports. According to Reuters, representatives of the E4 group, which includes Poland, as well as the EU and NATO will also take part in the meeting.
Reuters reported Monday, citing its own findings, that U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is also expected to travel to Norway. The other envoy, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is due to take part in the negotiations remotely because of illness.
The previous Ukrainian-American talks, held Oct. 9 in Miami, ended prematurely. Mutual criticism escalated after the meeting. Trump accused Zelenskyy of being unwilling to end the war, while Zelenskyy accused Washington of pressuring Kyiv to force Ukraine’s capitulation. (PAP)
