Rubio says the US could ‘move on’ if no end to the war in Ukraine in ..
CNN — The United States could end its efforts on ending the Ukrainian conflict within “days” if there are no signs of progress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Friday.
“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” he told reporters before departing Paris, where he had held high-level talks with European and Ukrainian officials. “We need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable,” he said.
Rubio’s comments point to mounting frustration within the Trump administration at the lack of progress at bringing the three-year full-scale war to a halt.
Asked to clarify what Rubio meant that the US would “move on,” a US official told CNN the secretary of state was talking about the US moving on from negotiations and that the next few days will be important to figure out where things go from here.
A broad framework has been presented to both sides, Rubio and the State Department have said, to determine whether the differences can be narrowed in this short timeframe. Rubio said it would be taken by the Ukrainians back to Zelensky to discuss, and it was raised between Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on a call on Thursday.
If there’s no movement, the US official said, the administration will have to make significant policy decisions. Trump has threatened secondary sanctions and tariffs on Russia. But he has also said the US won’t continue to fund Ukraine indefinitely and that Europe needs to step up, the official noted.
Moscow has stalled on negotiations and rejected a ceasefire proposal agreed by Kyiv. Having promised on the campaign trail to end the fighting in a day, US President Donald Trump more recently said “Russia has to get moving.”
Despite US officials holding talks with Ukrainian and European counterparts on Thursday in what the State Department touted as an “excellent exchange,” and progress being made toward a landmark minerals deal between Washington and Kyiv, peace still feels out of reach. Meanwhile, a partial ceasefire on energy infrastructure brokered by the US came to an end on Thursday, an agreement both sides frequently accused each other of violating.
Vance ‘optimistic’ about negotiations
Vice President JD Vance said hours after Rubio’s comments that the Trump administration feels “optimistic” they will ultimately be able to successfully negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.
“I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and also some of the things that have happened even in the past 24 hours,” Vance said in Rome during a bilateral meeting with Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
He continued, “I think we have some interesting things to report on, of course, in private, some negotiations. I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close.”
A US-authored outline of a peace plan had received an “encouraging reception” at the talks in the French capital, according to a State Department readout, which did not give details on the outline. Rubio also spoke with Lavrov and conveyed the same outline, the readout said.
Speaking Friday, Rubio said he and Witkoff had come to Paris to “begin to talk about more specific outlines of what it might take to end the war” and whether or not this is a war that can be ended.
“If it’s not possible, if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen then I think the president is probably at a point where he’s going to say we’re done,” he said.
“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,” he added.
“President (Trump) has spent 87 days at the highest level of this government repeatedly taking efforts to bring this war to and end. We are now reaching a point when we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not. Which is why we’re engaging both sides.”
Meanwhile, Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine overnight, hitting a residential neighborhood of the city of Kharkiv. The strike killed one person and wounded 67 others, authorities said Friday, adding they feared more people could be trapped beneath the rubble of a damaged apartment building.
Step towards minerals deal
Rubio’s words of warning on Friday come after the US and Ukraine moved closer toward clinching an agreement on a minerals deal on Thursday night.
Kyiv and Washington have now signed a memorandum as a move towards the proposed agreement, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
“We are happy to announce the signing, with our American partners, of a Memorandum of Intent, which paves the way for an Economic Partnership Agreement and the establishment of the Investment Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine,” Svyrydenko said in a post on X.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said earlier Thursday that a memorandum related to the deal could be signed remotely that day.
“This document is the result of the professional work of the negotiating teams, which recently completed another round of technical discussions in Washington,” Svyrydenko continued. “Ahead is the finalization of the text of the agreement and its signing — and then, ratification by parliaments.”
“There is a lot to do, but the current pace and significant progress give reason to expect that the document will be very beneficial for both countries,” Svyrydenko concluded.
An earlier iteration of the minerals deal went unsigned following a public argument between Zelensky and Trump in February.
Details of the proposed deal have since been in flux, with Treasury officials meeting a Ukrainian delegation in Washington this week to hammer it out, sources told CNN.
CNN’s Alex Marquardt contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
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