President Donald Trump on Friday said negotiations between Ukraine and Russia are “coming to a head” and insisted that neither side is “playing” him in his push to end the grinding war.
Mr. Trump spoke shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the U.S. may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days, after months of efforts have failed to bring an end to the fighting.
“Now, if for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say you’re foolish. You are fools, you horrible people,” Mr. Trump said. “And we’re going to just take a pass. But hopefully, we won’t have to do that.”
Mr. Rubio’s dour assessment came after landmark talks in Paris among U.S., Ukrainian and European officials produced outlines for steps toward peace and appeared to make some long-awaited progress. Another meeting is expected next week in London, and Rubio suggested it could be decisive in determining whether the Trump administration continues its involvement.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Mr. Rubio told reporters in Paris. “Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on. It’s not our war. We have other priorities to focus on.”
He said the U.S. administration wants to decide “in a matter of days.”
The State Department said Mr. Rubio issued the same warning in a phone call Friday with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, telling him that “if a clear path to peace does not emerge soon, the United States will step back from efforts to broker peace.”
Mr. Trump said “Marco is right” that the dynamic of the negotiations must change, but stopped short of saying he’s ready to walk away.
“Well, I don’t want to say that,” Mr. Trump said. “But we want to see it end.”
Mr. Rubio’s comments stepped up pressure on both sides to reach a peace deal, even as the U.S. and Ukraine made progress on a minerals agreement that Trump has sought to recoup billions of dollars in military assistance that Washington has sent Kyiv since Russia’s full scale invasion in February 2022.
They also indicated the road to a complete truce will be long and mired with contention, despite Trump repeatedly claiming on the campaign trail that he could end the war within a day. Trump said last month that he was “being a little bit sarcastic.”
Coming out of the Paris talks, the Americans are ready to use both carrot and stick strategies with Russia and understand the need for ″a relationship of force that allows them to get commitments from both sides,” said a French diplomatic official who took part in the talks but was not authorized to comment publicly.
The Americans and Europeans discussed sanctions but ″not the question of easing sanctions” on Russia. The official said the European Union needs to use ″all instruments at our disposition,” notably to have levers of influence over the Russians to ensure they commit to eventual promises.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance struck a more hopeful tone in Rome on Friday, ahead of talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“We think we have some interesting things to report on, of course in private,” he said. On the 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.”
He didn’t give more details.
The U.S. and Ukraine are nearing a long-delayed deal granting the U.S. access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, which has been intertwined with Trump’s peace push. Trump said Thursday: “We have a minerals deal.” Ukraine’s economy minister said Friday that the two countries signed a memorandum of intent ahead of a possible fuller agreement later.
The deal, which Ukrainian Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said she signed with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, is expected to pave the way for significant investments, infrastructure modernization and long-term cooperation.
The framework of the mineral deal had stalled in February following a contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump, Vance and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Despite apparent impatience with the peace efforts, Rubio called Thursday’s Paris talks constructive. He said he informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about the outlines that emerged, but wouldn’t say how Lavrov reacted.
When asked about Mr. Rubio’s comments on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “fairly complex” negotiations are ongoing between Russia and the U.S. He did not give details.
“Russia is striving toward resolving this conflict, securing its own interests, and is open to dialogue. We are continuing to do this,” he said.
Peskov stressed that a limited, 30-day ceasefire backed by Washington that both Russia and Ukraine last month embraced in principle has now lapsed, but did not say what steps Moscow might take next.
While voicing their readiness to implement the agreement, the warring parties issued conflicting statements soon after their separate talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia. They differed on the start time of halting strikes, and alleged near-immediate breaches by the other side.
After weeks of tensions with European allies, Rubio said the European negotiators proved helpful. “The U.K. and France and Germany can help us move the ball on this.”
European concerns are growing about Trump’s readiness to draw closer to Russia. The talks in Paris were the first time since Trump’s inauguration that top American, Ukrainian and European officials met to discuss an end to the war, which has posed the biggest security challenge to Europe since World War II.
The meetings addressed security guarantees for Ukraine in the future, but Rubio wouldn’t discuss any possible U.S. role in that. Some kind of U.S. support for Ukraine is seen as crucial to ensuring that Russia would not attack again after a peace deal is reached.
Mr. Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff have helped lead U.S. efforts to seek peace, and Witkoff has met three times with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr. Rubio said. Several rounds of negotiations have been held in Saudi Arabia.
Moscow has effectively refused to accept a separate, comprehensive ceasefire that Mr. Trump has pushed and Ukraine has endorsed. Russia has made it conditional on a halt in Ukraine’s mobilization efforts and Western arms supplies, which are demands rejected by Ukraine.
Asked if Mr. Putin was dragging his feet on negotiations, Mr. Trump replied, “I hope not. We’ll know about that soon if he is.”
Thomas Wright, a former National Security Council adviser closely involved in the Biden administration’s efforts on the war, said Trump’s approach to the negotiations “was sort of remarkable” for putting all the pressure for concessions on Ukraine. It suggests, he said, that Trump might want to “sidestep the war” and move forward to deepen ties with Russia.
Mr. Wright said if the Mr. Trump administration were to pull support from Ukraine, it would help Russia but it wouldn’t end the war.
“The only way to bring the war to an end is to somehow increase pressure on Putin to negotiate seriously,’ said Wright, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “And the only way you can really do that is by … maintaining and intensifying support for Ukraine on the battlefield.”
Meanwhile, Russia kept up its deadly strikes on Ukrainian cities, wounding scores of civilians days after missiles killed at least 34 during Palm Sunday celebrations in the northern city of Sumy.
One person died and 98 others, including six children, were hurt as Russia hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Friday, its mayor Ihor Terekhov reported. He said cluster munitions struck a densely populated neighborhood four times.
Russian drones also targeted a bakery in Sumy, less than a week after the deadly Palm Sunday strike there, killing a customer and wounding an employee, the regional prosecutor’s office said. Photos released by the agency showed rows of Easter cakes stacked inside a devastated building, covered in thick dust, as a huge hole gaped in the wall behind them and rubble piled up on the floor.
Last Sunday’s strike on Sumy, resulting in mass casualties, was the second large-scale missile attack to claim civilian lives in just over a week. Some 20 people, including nine children, died on April 4 as missiles struck Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih.
Published – April 19, 2025 03:04 am IST
