PARIS: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday warned Washington could soon exit efforts to broker a Ukraine ceasefire if clear progress is not made in the coming days.
“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” he told reporters, following his meeting with European partners in Paris.
“It’s not our war. We didn’t start it. The United States has been helping Ukraine for the past three years, and we want it to end, but it’s not our war,” Rubio said. “We have other priorities to focus on as well,” he added.
He said that although US President Donald Trump remains committed to advancing peace efforts, the United States must also pay attention to other global priorities.
“The president has spent 87 days at the highest level of this government, repeatedly making efforts to bring this war to an end. We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not. Which is why we’re engaging both sides,” Rubio added.
European powers have been striving to gain a role in the peace process since US President Donald Trump’s unexpected move to initiate talks with Russia aimed at ending the three-year conflict, which started in 2022.
However, Trump’s efforts to broker peace have faced setbacks, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has resisted agreeing to a full ceasefire.
Rubio said European officials had been “very helpful and constructive with their ideas” during talks in Paris on Thursday, which he attended with US envoy Steve Witkoff.
“We’d like them to remain engaged… I think the UK and France, and Germany can help us move the ball on this,” he said, ahead of a similar meeting planned for “early next week” in London.
European sanctions
Ukraine announced on Friday that its prime minister will travel to Washington next week for discussions with US officials aimed at finalising a long-delayed agreement on minerals and natural resources.
The deal, sought by President Donald Trump, is intended as a form of compensation for the aid previously provided to Ukraine by former President Joe Biden.
Under the proposed agreement, the United States would receive royalty payments from the profits generated through Ukraine’s mining of rare minerals and other resources.
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, during a phone call with Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov late Thursday said that “peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement,” according to the US State Department.
“Many of them are European sanctions that we can’t lift, if that were ever to be part of a deal,” he said.
Last month, European states agreed to ramp up rather than scale down sanctions on Russia.
