It was during the visit that the American top diplomat had spent most of the time talking about Washington’s support for NATO “even as the most really hardline approach has been adopted by President Donald Trump,” when that same US government then was reaching out to the Russians for an invitation to ceasefire in Ukraine.
“We will know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not. I hope they are,” Rubio said.
“If this is dragging things out, President Trump’s not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations,” he added.
“We’re testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace. Their actions, not their words, their actions; will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.”
The Secretary Of States Role in Delegation
Rubio was among a US delegation that met Russian officials in Saudi Arabia in February in what the Trump administration described as an effort to kick-start peace negotiations.
Discussions since then have failed to produce any tangible fruit, as Russia is not interested in a cease-fire and has only agreed to a moratorium on energy infrastructure strikes as a result of a phone call by Trump to the Russian President Vladimir Putin last March. As a result of that, the same accusation was made by both countries to the other, that they have violated the limited agreement.
President Trump had the Europeans worried at the beginning because when it came to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he took a very hard line with him while keeping quite an accommodating tone on the other side toward Russia.
Nevertheless, this week, Trump complains of being “very angry” with Putin, while at the same time hinting at what would amount to secondary sanctions on Russia if it did not accede to a more complete US-backed ceasefire.
Speaking at the NATO meeting, the foreign secretary of the United Kingdom blamed Russia for delaying the ceasefire.
“Our judgement is that Putin continues to obfuscate, continues to drag his feet,” David Lammy told reporters.
“We see you, Vladimir Putin. We know what you are doing,” he said.
For their part, Russian officials have said they could not agree to the current terms of the US proposal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that there was cause for “cautious optimism” after a visit to Washington, DC, this week by Putin’s investment envoy, Kirill Dmitriev.
Still, he said, there is “nothing in the schedule now” for another call between Putin and Trump.
