The United States will abandon efforts to end the war in Ukraine if it turns out to be impossible to negotiate significant progress in the coming days, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio leaving Paris after a meeting Thursday with President Emmanuel Macron, from France.
“If it is not possible to put an end to the war in Ukraine, we must move on,” Rubio told journalists, adding that the Trump administration will decide “in a few days if this is doable or not in the coming weeks.”
His remarks increased pressure on Russia and Ukraine to end the war and seemed to inject urgency in European efforts to provoke Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, to the compromise. Although the United States is the main interlocutor of Russia in negotiations, Europe has much more illustration on Mr. Zelensky. President Trump said on Thursday that he was “not a big fan” of the Ukrainian chief.
Mr. Rubio said that Mr. Trump “spent 87 days at the highest level of this government making efforts several times to end this war. We now reach a point where we have to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not.”
High -level talks between American, European and Ukrainian officials were the first of its kind, intended to bring a “convergence” between the views of the war in Washington and the European capitals. Rubio said the conversations had been constructive, but it seemed clear that Mr. Trump was losing patience.
“It is not our war. We have not started it,” said Rubio. “The United States has been helping Ukraine for three years and we want it to end, but it is not our war.”
Mr. Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s envoy, led American diplomacy aimed at ending the war, which has been coming out for more than three years. Mr. Witkoff met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia several times and said that he was trying to develop a “friendship, a relationship” with the Russian chief.
But Mr. Putin fell, setting various conditions, even for a 30-day ceasefire. The Russian bombing of Ukraine continues.
The officials who participated in the Paris talks agreed to meet next week in London, and Mr. Rubio said he could participate. He said that he hoped that Europeans would remain involved in efforts to ensure peace in Ukraine. The requirements of Mr. Putin – including Ukraine ceded the territory that Russia has occupied and abandoned its attempts to join NATO – were rejected by Ukraine.
“I think that the United Kingdom and France and Germany can help us move the ball on this subject, then get closer to a resolution,” Rubio told journalists at Le Bourget as he was preparing to leave. “I thought they were very useful and constructive with their ideas.”
