The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, speaks in the media during a fuel replenishment stop at the Shannon airport in Shannon, Ireland, on March 12, 2025, while traveling from the conversations with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia to attend a meeting of external ministers of the G7.
Saul Loeb | Through Reuters
The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, said that President Donald Trump has not yet imposed sanctions on Russia on his in -and in the war with Ukraine, the White House still hopes that diplomacy can end the war.
“At the moment you start doing that son of things, you’re moving away from that,” Rubio said on Sunday in NBC “Meet The Press”.
Rubio said that next week it will be “very critical” for the White House, since it makes a “determination about whether this is an effort in which we want to be continuously.”
“There are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic,” said Rubio, adding: “We are close, but we are not close enough.”
“Through this process, it’s about determining, both parties really want peace and how close they are or how separate they are after 90 days of effort here … That is what we are trying to determine this week,” Rubio said about negotiations.
Rubio’s comments occur when Trump is increasing pressure on Russia and Ukraine to reach a peace agreement. Trump with Saturday with Ukrainian President Volodyymyr Zenskyy, just before floating the possibility of harder sanctions against Moscow.
Rubio said that Trump has “made real progress” in friends the end of the war, but “those last two steps of this trip would always be the most difficult, and it must happen soon.”
“We are continuously, as I said, to spend time and resources to this effort if it will not reach the fruit,” he added.
Trump questioned on Saturday if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, wants to “stop the war” against Ukraine.
“It makes me think that maybe I don’t want to stop war, it’s just hitting me and has to be differently, through” or “secondary sanctions?” Too many people are dying! Trump wrote about Truth Social.
Its publication came just after having a private meeting with Zenskyy in Rome, which the White House described as a “productive discussion.”