US Vice President JD Vance threatened Moscow on Thursday (Feb 13) with sanctions and potential military action if the Russian President Vladimir Putin does not agree to a peace deal with Ukraine that includes independence of Kyiv, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

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Vance said in an interview with the newspaper that "there are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage" that the US could use against Putin. 

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"There are any number of formulations, of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence,” he added. 

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“I think there is a deal that is going to come out of this that’s going to shock a lot of people,” Vance said, as reported by the newspaper.  

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Vance further added that Trump would not go ahead with "blinders" and would rather say "Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal". 

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This came ahead of talks between Vance and Zelensky on late Friday. The duo is expected to meet to discuss Trump's plan to settle the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. 

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Ukraine would be part of discussion 

On Wednesday (Feb 12), US President Donald Trump discussed the ongoing war with Russian President Putin and with Ukrainian President Zelensky in two different phone calls. After this, he told his officials to hold talks to end the three-year-long conflict. 

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Ukrainians are worried that Trump is preparing to sell out their country after talks with Putin, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, Trump said Ukraine would be a part of the peace talks with Russia. 

(With inputs from agencies)