The United States was working to "schedule" a meeting between President Donald Trump and his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, Vice President JD Vance said, as Ukraine's European allies pushed for Kiev's presence at the US-Russia summit in Alaska this week.
"One of the most important logjams is that Vladimir Putin said that he would never sit down with (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy, the head of Ukraine, and the president has now got that to change," Vance said during an interview on Fox News programme "Sunday Morning Futures" on Sunday.
"We're at a point now where we're trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict," Vance said when asked about his expectations for the Alaska summit on August 15.
The vice president, in an interview conducted ahead of last week's announcement that the US and Russian presidents would meet this Friday, said the United States was going to "try to find some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and Russians can live with."
Vance added: "It's not going to make anybody super happy, both the Russians and the Ukrainians probably at the end of the day are going to be unhappy with it."
The planned US-Russia summit in Alaska without Zelenskyy had raised concerns that a deal would require Kiev to cede territory, which the European Union has rejected.
US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker suggested on CNN that Zelenskyy could attend the summit.
He was asked whether Zelenskyy might join Trump and Putin on Friday.
"Yes, I certainly think it's possible," he said. "Certainly, there can't be a deal that everybody that's involved in it doesn't agree to. And, I mean, obviously, it's a high priority to get this war to end."
In a flurry of diplomacy, Zelenskyy held calls with 13 counterparts over three days including Kiev’s main backers Germany, Britain and France.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday he hoped and assumed that Zelenskyy would attend the summit.
Whitaker said the decision would ultimately be Trump's to make.
"If he thinks that that is the best scenario to invite Zelenskyy, then he will do that," he said, adding that "no decision has been made to this point."
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022, with millions forced to flee their homes.
