US Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated on Friday that his country may be losing patience with the pace of negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine .
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Marco Rubio told reporters as he was returning to the US from Paris.
“We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term, because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on.
“If it is, we’re in. If it’s not, then… we have other priorities to focus on as well.”
The meeting came as the Trump administration deals with the global fallout from sweeping tariffs — which escelated into a trade war with China — as well controversy surrounding increased deportations.
“The United States has been helping Ukraine over the last three years, and we want it to end, but it’s not our war,” Rubio said.
Rubio had just attended high-level talks hosted by France on Thursday to discuss Ukraine and its security. The meeting was the first time since President Donald Trump’s inauguration that top US, Ukrainian and European officials are known to have met together to discuss an end to the war.
The US top diplomat said European officials had been “very helpful and constructive with their ideas” during talks on Thursday.
“We’d like them to remain engaged… I think the UK and France and Germany can help us move the ball on this and then get this closer to a resolution,” Rubio said, adding that he also hoped that European nations would consider lifting sanctions against Russia imposed after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“Part of the sanctions against Russia, many of them are European sanctions that we can’t lift, if that were ever to be part of a deal,” he said.
But European countries have agreed to ramp up rather than lift sanctions on Russia in the past months.
