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... Vance said the Trump administration had made "significant progress" in its efforts to broker a halt to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an accord between Kyiv and Moscow, but conceded it had been "the hardest war to solve."

"In some ways we thought it would be the easiest, but it has been the hardest," Vance said.

He criticized European leaders while praising Orban, arguably the NATO leader who has retained the closest ties to Moscow during the war, for their behavior amid the diplomatic impasse.

"We've been disappointed by a lot of political leadership in Europe because they don't seem particularly interested in solving this particular conflict," he said.

European governments, meanwhile, counter that while they want to bring the conflict to an end, it should be what they call a just peace and not amount to an enforced partial Ukrainian capitulation. ...