Vance is in Milan for the Winter Olympics, a trip that will later take him to Armenia and Azerbaijan

MILAN (AP) — Vice President JD Vance landed in Milan with his family Thursday, the first stop on a trip combining diplomacy and sports where he is leading President Donald Trump's delegation to the 2026 Winter Olympics and later stopping in Armenia and Azerbaijan in a show of support for a peace agreement brokered by the White House last year.

The weeklong trip may be one of only a few international trips Vance makes this year. Trump and his Cabinet members are taking a tighter focus on domestic issues — and domestic travel — heading into the November midterm elections, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said last month.

On Thursday, Vance plans to meet with U.S. athletes competing in the Milan Cortina Winter Games, and later plans to watch the U.S. women’s hockey team take on Czechia in a preliminary game.

At the opening ceremony for the games on Friday, the vice president will lead a U.S. delegation that includes his wife, second lady Usha Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta. Former Olympic gold medalists will also be in the delegation, including hockey player sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando; speedskater Apolo Ohno and figure skater Evan Lysacek.

Vance is following in the footsteps of former vice presidents Joe Biden who attended the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 and Mike Pence who traveled to Pyeongchang, Korea in 2018. Former Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing because the Biden administration did not send any diplomatic officials as a boycott over human rights concerns.

After Italy, Vance plans to head to Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Trump has tasked him with building on a deal aimed at ending four decades of conflict between the two countries.

The peace agreement boosts the position of the U.S. in the region at a time when Russia’s influence is declining. The two former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, agreed under the deal to reopen key transportation routes and bolster cooperation with the United States in energy, technology and the economy. The deal also calls for the creation of a major transit corridor dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It is expected to connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 32-kilometer-wide (20-mile-wide) patch of Armenian territory.

Vance’s mission on the trip to further the peace effort is similar to an assignment he took on in October, when he traveled to Israel weeks after a ceasefire was negotiated in its war with Hamas in Gaza, reiterating the Trump administration’s commitment to the effort.

In addition to the Israel stop last year, Vance made trips to France, Germany, Greenland, India, and the U.K. He twice visited Italy, meeting Pope Francis before his death, and later, his successor Pope Leo XIV.

While presidents focus their foreign travel on meetings with some of the U.S.’s biggest allies, vice presidents often are called on to make trips a little off the beaten path. Biden, for example, went to Mongolia in 2011, where he tried some archery and was gifted a horse. In 2017, Pence visited Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro, where he affirmed support for NATO, along with participating in symbolic diplomacy with the planting of an oak tree.

For vice presidents, foreign trips are partly “a function of what the president likes to do — and not like to do,” said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Pence during Trump’s first term.

Sometimes, trips can include unexpected elements, such as Pence's 2018 trip to the East Asia Summit in Singapore that included an informal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Short also recalled a 2019 trip to Poland where Pence was called to fill in for the president who stayed home to monitor Hurricane Dorian. That trip involved a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“The reality, obviously, is the president has a lot of other responsibilities,” Short said, “So it’s often important that the United States be represented by the highest official available. In many cases, that’s just the vice president.”

Vice President JD Vance, second lady Usha Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio his wife Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to Italy and San Marino Tilman Fertitta pose for a photo with Team USA athletes, at the Team USA Welcome Experience, ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Ambassador to Italy and San Marino Tilman Fertitta and his wife Paige Fertitta welcome Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance as they arrive ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

Vice President JD Vance holds his son Vivek's credentials, at the Team USA Welcome Experience, ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. Ambassador to Italy and San Marino Tilman Fertitta and his wife Paige Fertitta welcome Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance as they arrive ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

Vice President JD Vance, second lady Usha Vance and their children Mirabel and Vivek disembark Air Force Two as they arrive ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)

Vice President JD Vance waves as he and second lady Usha Vance board Air Force Two to travel to the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, from Joint Base Andrews, Md., Feb. 4, 2026. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Negotiators from Moscow and Kyiv on Thursday held a second day of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on ending their war amid an escalation in Russia’s winter attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and after a sharp rise last year in Ukrainian civilians killed in the fighting.

“We are working in the same formats as yesterday: trilateral consultations, group work, and further synchronization of positions,” said Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council chief, who was present at the meeting.

The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined in the capital of the United Arab Emirates by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to Umerov. They were also at last month's talks in the same place as the Trump administration tries to steer the two countries toward a settlement.

General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, was also present at the talks, according to a spokesman for the general who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged allied countries to press Moscow into ending its all-out invasion, which began almost four years ago on Feb. 24 2022, and said his country needs security guarantees to deter any postwar Russian attacks.

Ukrainians must feel that there is genuine progress toward peace and “not toward a scenario in which the Russians exploit everything to their advantage and continue their strikes,” Zelenskyy said on social media late Wednesday.

Fighting has continued in parallel with the talks. Russia has hammered Ukraine’s electricity network, aiming to deny civilians power and weaken their appetite for the fight, while a grinding war of attrition continues along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

Last year saw a 31% increase in Ukrainian civilian casualties compared with 2024, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said in a report published Wednesday.

Almost 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and just over 40,000 injured since the start of the war through last December, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attend a commemorative ceremony at the Memorial Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Workers clean up damage at Darnytsia Thermal Power Plant after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Workers clean up damage at Darnytsia Thermal Power Plant after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Workers clean up damage at Darnytsia Thermal Power Plant after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Workers clean up damage at Darnytsia Thermal Power Plant after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)