Trump will abandon Ukraine peace talks ‘in days’ without progress, warns Rubio

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The highest American diplomat said that president Donald Trump will abandon an attempt to negotiate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine within days “unless he sees clear signs that a deal is possible.

The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that Washington will not continue Ukraine speaking “for weeks or months” and will focus on “other priorities” if there is no penetration soon.

“If this is not possible, if we are so far away that this will not happen, I think the president is at a point where he will say, well, we have finished,” Rubio told reporters on Friday.

Hours after his statements, Vice President JD Vance struck a more optimistic tone, saying that there were positive developments in the talks even during the past 24 hours.

“We are optimistic that we hope that we can make this war – this war is very brutal – in the end,” Vans said at the beginning of a meeting in Rome with Prime Minister Italy, Georgia Meloni, a strong supporter of Kev.

Data contrary to US officials follow a day meeting in Paris on Thursday, which was hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, who was attended by an American delegation, including Rubio and Steve Witkev, along with officials from Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Germany.

“We will not continue to fly around the world and do the meeting after the meeting after the meeting if progress is not made,” said Rubio. He said that the United States wants to discover “within days, not weeks”, if it is peace to be achieved, adding that Trump “felt strongly” that the conversations could not continue.

Rubio did not explain what the effects of US military support to Ukraine would be if Trump abandoned the effort of the mediator between Moscow and Kiev. During his presidential campaign, Trump said he would end the war within “24 hours”, but after taking office, his team set a goal for 100 days, a period that concludes later this month.

The Paris gathering aims at jumping talks that stopped since Trump’s return with Russian President Vladimir Putin in February and pressed Ukrainian leader Folodimir Zellinski to negotiate a settlement. Ukraine has said since it was open to a temporary ceasefire, but Russia has been late.

“If both sides are serious, we want help, but if it does not happen, we will only move to other topics on equal footsteps if not more important for the United States,” said Rubio.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, said on Friday that there was “progress” in the talks, but “many difficult discussions are still waiting for us.”

Ukraine said on Thursday that it had signed an initial agreement with the United States to share its metal and energy resources, which was a major demand from Trump, who sees it as a way to pay the United States by billions of dollars in military aid.

Such an agreement was about to sign in February, but he was leaving an argument between Trump and Zelinski in the Oval Office.

Rubio said that the talks in Paris were “very positive” and that the participation of European countries was constructive. Another meeting will be held in a similar coordination next week in London to allow the United States to obtain Russian and Ukraine inputs to make a decision on its jobs.

One of the French officials said that a gathering on Thursday was important because it started a “new positive process” in peace talks that this time had more participation from European countries.

The talks were the first high -level talks in the United States’ efforts directly that included European powers. A British official also said that the discussion was important for the United States in obtaining the same position as the Europeans about Putin’s lack of commitment to peace plans.

“The United Kingdom, France and Germany can help us to move the ball on this and approach the decision,” said Rubio.

Rubio refused to describe the framework set by the United States on the table at this stage. He added that it is too early to make final decisions on security guarantees, although they have been discussed.

Ukraine has pushed strongly for such guarantees, especially with regard to its ability to maintain a strong army to defend itself, and its European allies emphasized their importance.