Secretary of State Rubio outlines next steps in U.S.-Russia negotiations

He made this statement in an interview with Breitbart News.

According to him, the key question in the February 18 meeting between Russian and U.S. representatives was: “Are you interested in ending this conflict or not?”

“A lot of people don’t know the answer to that. If you talk to some in Europe, they’ll tell you that Putin is not interested in ending the war. They said they would be, under the right conditions. We didn’t discuss what those conditions were. So the next step is to meet with them again at some point, with the right group of people in the room, and begin to outline what it would take for Russia to stop a war. And obviously, we’ve got to ask Ukraine the same question because you can’t stop a war unless both sides agree to it,” Rubio said.

He also once again called U.S. President Donald Trump a “president of peace” and stated that Trump would have liked to end the war in Ukraine “yesterday.”

“He thinks already too many people have died and there’s been too much destruction. By the way, I think everybody should be very happy that President Trump is a peace president. We have a president that wants to end wars, not start new ones. He wants to end human suffering, not exacerbate or extend it,” Rubio added.

U.S.-Russia negotiations in Saudi Arabia on February 18

On February 18, negotiations took place in the capital of Saudi Arabia between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The talks lasted nearly five hours.

Following the meeting, Rubio stated that in order to end the war in Ukraine, all sides would have to make concessions, but it would be wrong to determine them in advance. He also said that both countries agreed to restore the staffing of their embassies in Washington and Moscow in order to establish “missions to support peace negotiations on Ukraine, bilateral relations, and broader cooperation.”

Meanwhile, Fox News journalist Jacqui Heinrich reported that the U.S. and Russia were allegedly proposing a three-stage peace plan, which includes holding presidential elections in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on the U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh, which took place without Ukraine’s participation, stating that Kyiv would not accept Russian ultimatums.

After the negotiations, Trump also stated that elections should be held in Ukraine.