Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump announced Ohio Senator JD Vance as his vice-presidential pick on the opening day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee on July 15, in a move that brings the Ukraine war ceasefire talks a step closer.

Vance, 39, a prominent conservative and author of the 2016 memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," is one of Trump's staunchest allies and a vocal critic of the war in Ukraine.

“Frankly, I don't care about Ukraine. I don’t see what we are doing there,” Vance said in a recent interview.

As reported by bne IntelliNews, Ukraine is inching towards a ceasefire deal as pressure mounts on Kyiv, due to the lack of men, money and materiel. As the conflict drags into its third year, the fighting on the battlefield has reached a stalemate and Kyiv’s allies are becoming increasingly unhappy with the cost of the war.

The US ran out of money for Ukraine at the end of last year, and struggled to approve a new $61bn aid package that was only voted through on April 20 and is likely the last big aid package Ukraine will receive from Washington, according to many analysts.

The six-month pause in military aid for Ukraine allowed Russia to launch a massive barrage of missiles that has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The World Bank has said that it will take at least two years to repair the damage and Ukraine is anticipating a dark and cold winter as a result that has already seen an estimated 600,000 new refugees flee the country ahead of the heating season, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). More may follow as the weather starts to get colder.

A growing number of international leaders have called for a halt to the war and for ceasefire talks to begin.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban put the cat amongst the pigeons with his so-called peace mission since Hungary took over as EU president on July 1. He called for the resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia and talks with China on a peace conference to resolve the conflict in Ukraine in a letter to European Council President Charles Michel, the Bild newspaper reported on July 15, citing the text of the letter.

Orban notes that the intensity of the conflict in Ukraine will increase radically in the near future. He also called for a "political offensive" against the Global South, whose "respect has been lost due to the position on Ukraine".

And fresh opinion polls also show that Ukrainians are tiring of the war and a growing number want ceasefire talks to start, although few endorse giving away any territory to Russia as part of the process: 44% of Ukrainians believe it is time to initiate talks with Russia but 84% are against territorial concessions, according to a poll by the Razumkov Centre released this week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, apparently concerned by what an impending Trump-Vance team leading the White House after November’s presidential election means, called for a second peace summit on July 15, but this time including Russia, in his first concession to Moscow to ending this war.

Russia was not invited to the recent Swiss peace summit held on June 16-17, which was labelled a failure after many countries from the Global South and key players like China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) failed to attend.

Vance, who gained national attention for his book chronicling life in rural America, became a vocal supporter of Trump during his successful Senate bid in 2021. Previously a critic of Trump, Vance has been called a political chameleon who is likely to support Trump's aggressive protectionist and isolationist policies.

Vance is a former marine, but his opposition to Ukraine joining Nato and his advocacy for US focus on countering Chinese expansion have been contentious.

"Any peace settlement is going to require some significant territorial concessions from Ukraine," Vance stated in February, emphasising his belief that this is the only resolution to the conflict, adding in April that US support for Ukraine is unsustainable. However, Vance supports US aid to Israel and the normalisation agreements between the US and Arab states.