The US will abandon trying to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal within days unless there are clear signs a truce can be reached, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned.
“We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, adding that the US had “other priorities to focus on”.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has placed a number of conditions on any potential ceasefire.
Despite the Trump administration’s initial confidence that it could secure a deal quickly, attempts to reach a full ceasefire have yet to materialise, with Washington blaming both sides.
Following a meeting with European leaders in Paris about a potential ceasefire on Thursday, Rubio told reporters on Friday: “We need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable.”
“If it’s not going to happen, then we’re just going to move on,” he said about truce talks.
He said it was clear that a peace deal would be difficult to strike but there needed to be signs it could be done soon. US President Donald Trump had said before he re-entered office that he would stop the fighting in the first 24 hours of his presidency.
