Vance confirms to some extent consistent media reports that the US is proposing a peace solution where the conflict is paused at the current positions.
The current lines, or somewhere near them, are where you will ultimately draw the new lines in the conflict, he says to a press gathering during a trip to India.
The American describes it as both warring parties having to make territorial concessions in exchange, but it is unclear what Russia would have to relinquish. The invasion forces control about a fifth of Ukraine's territory.
It's time for both parties to "either say yes or no" – otherwise, it's probably time for the US to leave the process, says Vance.
Talks Postponed
Ukraine, the US, and several of Ukraine's major allies in Europe were to meet in London on Wednesday, but in the morning, the UK announced that it would be postponed.
The meeting was originally intended to be a ministerial meeting, similar to the one held in Paris last week, but US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently cancelled his participation, along with envoy Steven Witkoff. Instead, the US would send formal Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg.
"Talks continue at the official level", announces the UK Foreign Office.
Such meetings at a lower level will be held with Ukraine's Foreign Minister and Defense Minister. Talks will also take place between the Ukrainian delegation and UK Foreign Minister David Lammy.
According to a source to AFP, the Ukrainian delegation will also meet with US envoy Kellogg.
Meeting in Moscow
After the meeting in Paris last week, US envoy Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The next day, Secretary of State Rubio said it was time for progress in the process, or else the US would "move on". President Donald Trump expressed hope for a deal during this week.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has flatly rejected reports of territorial concessions, without clarifying whether it is what the US is proposing.
There is nothing to talk about. It's our land, the Ukrainian people's land, he said on Tuesday.
Russia has already backed paramilitary forces that took control of large parts of the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Russian forces entered the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula the same year, before the country illegally annexed it.
When the large-scale war began in February 2022, Russian forces entered and took control of an area along the entire land border, as well as a corridor where they approached the capital Kyiv.
Russia took control of the city of Mariupol in the south after a long and bloody siege, creating a land corridor of occupied territory that stretched to Crimea.
Ukraine's military struck back and early on pushed back the invasion forces entirely in the north. In the autumn of the same year, Ukraine regained the entire region of Kharkiv in the northeast and a large part of Kherson in the south in successful counter-offensives.
Since then, the front line has only shifted marginally: Russia has advanced with small steps in the east, and both countries have made incursions across the border in the northeast. In the summer of 2024, Ukraine launched a surprise counter-offensive into Russian Kursk and took over an area there. In the spring of 2025, they lost almost the entire area.
