USA talks with Russia this week about ending war, no result — Rubio
The United States held talks with representatives of the Russian leadership earlier this week about ending the war in Ukraine, but no progress was made. President Donald Trump will make a decision on further actions against Russia in the coming days, as attempts at a peaceful settlement have been fruitless for more than six months, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox Radio.
"The President has waited over six months now and given the best efforts possible. We continue to engage with the Russian side, as early as this week – earlier this week, on Monday or Tuesday. We had a whole conversation with them as well – not with Putin but with some of Putin’s top people – in hopes of arriving at some understanding on a path forward that would lead to peace, and we’ve not seen any progress on that," Rubio said.
According to him, the US president is concerned about the gap between the rhetoric of Russian representatives and events on the front.
"He has these great phone calls where everyone sort of claims yeah, we’d like to see this end, if we could find a way forward, and then he turns on the news and another city has been bombed, including those far from the frontlines," the Secretary of State said.
He emphasized that Washington is open to different scenarios, but the main condition remains the cessation of hostilities and the start of negotiations.
"So the President has a lot of options. I mean, he has options, as everyone knows, to sanction secondary sales of oil, there’s banking, sectoral banking sanctions that would also be very powerful. Again, I think our hope is to avoid that and to sort of figure out a way that we can get the fighting to stop. But so far, there’s not been, what we feel at least, a sincere interest on the Russian side of achieving that objective," Rubio stressed.