Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government can offer the removal of international sanctions against Russia in exchange for peace, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“Does President Zelensky — does he have the ability to negotiate sanctions relief with Putin?” host Chuck Todd asked Blinken.

“Our focus is on making sure we’re doing everything possible to strengthen Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table,” Blinken responded.

When Todd pressed him on the question of sanctions relief, Blinken clarified. “The entire international community has come together to impose those sanctions on Russia. We’ll be looking to see what Ukraine is doing and what it wants to do,” he said. “And if concludes that it can bring this war to an end, stop the death and destruction, and continue to assert its independence and its sovereignty, and ultimately that requires the lifting of sanctions, of course, we will allow that.”

Later in the show, Todd posed a similar question to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “You heard Secretary Blinken essentially say, ‘Look, sanctions relief could happen. It all depends on the behavior of Russia.’ Can we really live in a world where Putin’s let back into the New World Order?” he asked.

“Well, that’s not what I heard him say,” Clinton responded. “What I heard him say was that, really, we are going to support the Ukrainians — the people and the government of Ukraine — as they try to figure out what, for them, is the best way forward. And that, I think, is exactly the right position for the United States, Europe and the West, and other countries to take.”