(MENAFN) US Vice President J.D. Vance has defended the Trump administration’s approach to resolving the Ukraine-Russia conflict, arguing that critics fail to understand the realities on the ground and that simply increasing pressure on Russia will not secure a Ukrainian victory.

On Friday, former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell criticized the plan on X, labeling it a “capitulation” and “disastrous” for US interests. Meanwhile, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN that the plan is effectively “a Putin plan for Ukraine” and urged the administration to impose more secondary sanctions on Russia’s trading partners and supply Ukraine with long-range weapons.

Responding to such criticism, Vance posted on X Saturday that “every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground.” He added, “There is a fantasy that if we just give more money, more weapons, or more sanctions, victory is at hand.”

According to Vance, a realistic peace between Moscow and Kyiv can only be achieved by “smart people living in the real world,” rather than “failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land.”

Although the US peace plan has not been formally published, media reports indicate it calls for Ukraine to withdraw from parts of Donbass still under its control, reduce the size of its military, and abandon NATO aspirations, in exchange for Western security guarantees. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Kyiv must choose between accepting the “28 difficult points” of the plan or risking the loss of its key US backer. President Trump later warned that Zelensky “will have to like” the plan or face a difficult confrontation with Russia through the winter. The Financial Times reported that the US has set a Thursday deadline for Ukraine to respond to the proposal.

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