MUNICH - US Vice President JD Vance pledged Friday that Washington sought to secure a "lasting" peace as he held a first meeting with Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss Donald Trump's push for a deal with Moscow.
The talks in Munich were seen as a key moment for Kyiv as it tries to keep Washington on its side after Trump stunned allies by announcing truce efforts with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
"We want to achieve a durable, lasting peace, not the kind of peace that's going to have Eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road," Vance said as the meeting wrapped up.
He said "good conversations" had been had with Zelensky about how they could reach that goal, and they would have more talks "in the days, weeks and months to come".
Zelensky also hailed a "good conversation", saying the encounter with Vance was "our first meeting, not last, I'm sure".
"We are ready to move as quickly as possible towards a real and guaranteed peace," Zelensky later wrote on X, adding that an envoy from Washington would visit Kyiv.
Trump rattled Ukraine and its European allies on Wednesday by agreeing to launch ceasefire talks in his first publicly announced call with Putin since returning to office.
The dramatic thaw in relations sparked fears Ukraine could be left out in the cold after nearly three years battling Moscow's invasion.
"We will have low, low chance to survive without support of the United States," Zelensky said in a clip from an NBC interview, which will be aired on full Sunday.
US officials have insisted that Zelensky will be involved in negotiations -- and the Ukrainian leader said he would be prepared to sit down with Putin after agreeing a "common plan" with Trump.
Vance said ahead of the meeting that the United States was prepared to pressure Russia, adding that Europe should "of course" be at the table.
But he also told Europe to "step up" bolstering its own defence to allow Washington to focus on threats elsewhere in the world.
While Europe nervously monitors the US stance on Ukraine, there is little ambiguity on Trump's determination to get Europe to spend more on its defence.
Fears that Vance could announce a major US troop reduction in Europe did not materialise, but he repeated warnings that Washington needed to focus more on other parts of the globe.