UPDATE — the TRUMP administration says: This is pure fake news. Compare the transcript of JDVance‘s conversation with WSJ to the headline being run here. The Vice President didn’t make any threats. He simply stated the fact that no one is going to take options away from President Trump as these negotiations begin.

https://x.com/wsmartin218/status/1890384085027103120

Original

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the vice president says Ukraine must have ‘sovereign independence’

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the U.S. would hit Moscow with sanctions and potentially military action if Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t agree to a peace deal with Ukraine that guarantees Kyiv’s long-term independence.

“There are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage” the U.S. could use against Putin, Vance said. “There’s a whole host of things that we could do. But fundamentally, I think the president wants to have a productive negotiation, both with Putin and with Zelensky.“

https://archive.is/M48gh#selection-5943.0-5943.299

AND

Trump announces surprise summit with Putin — in Saudi Arabia. – New York Times

https://archive.is/I5kiD#selection-4559.0-4559.69

 

While this certainly sounds like a “my way or the highway” bullying style negotiation tactic, it could also be a planned “good cop bad cop” routine.  Russia has already converted to a war time economy and continues to ramp production for a potential war with NATO as well as continuing to train a +1M man reserve force in anticipation of NATO attack. In addition, Putin still classifies the Ukrainian situation as a “Special Military Operation” and has not yet declared war (thus reserving it’s war resources for the future). Nevertheless, Trump is a master negotiator and testing the waters is a technique — his skills will be on full display as this proceeds.