Rubio: Next step in talks with Russia will be to discuss "what would it take for Russia to stop war?"
The topic of future talks between Russia and the United States should be what Moscow is willing to do to end the war in Ukraine. At the same time, a similar question should be asked of official Kyiv.
According to Censor.NET, this was stated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an interview with Breitbart News.
According to him, the main issue of the meeting between representatives of the Russian Federation and the United States on 18 February 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. 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 would it 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 US President Donald Trump a "peace president" and said that he 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 it or extend it," he added.
Meeting in Saudi Arabia
As a reminder, on 12 February 2025, Trump said that his meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was likely to take place in Saudi Arabia.
Trump also said that a meeting between representatives of Ukraine, the United States and Russia would take place in Saudi Arabia next week.
On 14 February, the Saudi Foreign Ministry announced that the Kingdom was ready to host a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
On 18 February, delegations from the US and Russia met in Saudi Arabia.
Both sides described it as positive. The United States and Russia agreed to resume the full-fledged work of the US embassies in Moscow and Russia in Washington. The key issue was to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Fox News reported that Russia and the United States are allegedly proposing a three-stage peace plan, including a ceasefire, elections in Ukraine, and then a final agreement.
Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Trump and Putin may hold a summit in Saudi Arabia next week.
