Ukraine will likely lose Donetsk, US Vice President JD Vance has claimed.<\/p>\n
In an exclusive interview with UnHerd<\/a>\u2019s Sohrab Ahmari, Vance said that \u201cthe Russians really want territorial control of Donetsk\u201d while leaders in Kyiv \u201cprivately acknowledge that, eventually, they\u2019ll probably lose\u201d the region. According to the Vice President, \u201cit could be 12 months from now, it could be longer than that. So that territorial concession is a significant hold-up in the negotiations.\u201d Russia currently holds over 80% of Donetsk, and Vladimir Putin has insisted<\/a> that his troops will take the entirety of the region by force unless Ukraine withdraws.<\/p>\n The White House has hailed<\/a> \u201cproductive\u201d recent talks in Florida to end the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. In the new UnHerd interview, Vance claimed that a \u201cbreakthrough\u201d has been made now \u201cthat all the issues are actually out in the open\u201d. He suggested that \u201cthe Ukrainians are understandably very focused on\u201d the \u201cquestion about reconstruction\u201d after the war\u2019s conclusion, adding that both parties have \u201cparticipated, at least in the last few months, in the negotiations in good faith\u201d.<\/p>\n During the interview, Vance also said he disagreed with Pope Leo XIV\u2019s assessment<\/a> that President Donald Trump is trying to \u201cbreak apart\u201d the alliance between the United States and Europe over the Ukraine war. While acknowledging that the Vatican is \u201ca diplomatic force for good\u201d, Vance labelled the Pope\u2019s intervention \u201ca particularly Eurocentric view of these negotiations\u201d. He insisted: \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to destroy the European alliance, we\u2019re not trying to divide Europeans against one another. What we\u2019re actually trying to do vis-\u00e0-vis Europe is to encourage them to be a little bit more self-sustaining.\u201d<\/p>\n