The Trump administration may abandon its mediation efforts with Russia and Ukraine if the conflict continues unabated without progress toward peace.
“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Friday after meeting European and Ukrainian officials for negotiations in Paris. “The President has spent 87 days at the highest level of this government repeatedly taking efforts to bring this war to an end.”
Getting Russia to the negotiating table has been a challenge for the Trump administration. Despite President Trump offering concessions, Vladimir Putin has not been persuaded to give up his military ambitions for Ukraine.
However, Trump’s trade war has sent oil prices plunging, which has handicapped Russia’s ability to fund its war given the outsized role crude prices play in the regime’s federal budget. With its shaky credit record, Russia also may not be able to compensate for the shortfall by borrowing money, having already defaulted on some of its foreign debt back in June 2022. The Russian war machine can’t run without steady oil and gas revenues, as our Jim Geraghty noted.
Regarding Rubio’s “move on” warning, the U.S. may consider resuming a diplomatic position of maximum pressure on Putin’s government via the imposition of hefty sanctions or more military aid to Ukraine.
Weeks ago, after a White House meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky turned sour, the Trump administration cut military aid to Ukraine as well as Ukraine’s access to intelligence-sharing with the U.S. before restoring it shortly after.
Russia-Ukraine peace talks stalled after Moscow hemmed and hawed over Trump’s proposed 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine signed on to. Russia demanded that Ukraine demilitarize, give up its petition to join NATO, and accept Russia’s conquest of certain territory as conditions of it agreeing to the ceasefire, most of which Zelensky rejected outright.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we’re engaging both sides,” Rubio told the press in Paris on Friday.
Rubio’s visit was to determine what else could be done to secure a ceasefire agreement with Russia and Ukraine.
“We need to determine very quickly now — and I’m talking about a matter of days — whether or not this is doable,” Rubio said. “If it can, we’re prepared to do whatever we can to facilitate that and make sure that it happens, that it ends in a durable and just way.”
The president’s patience will likely run out, Rubio said, signaling an ultimatum to the two parties given that a deal still seems out of reach.
Ending the war in Ukraine was a top and immediate foreign policy objective for Trump, who does not want an international quagmire hanging over his second term. Presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, who joined Rubio, European officials, and Ukrainian officials in France, has been the major middleman between Russia and Ukraine. In April, he attended an almost five-hour-long meeting with Putin and senior Kremlin aides to discuss peace efforts.
The regime has expressed to Witkoff an appetite for a “permanent” peace beyond a short-term ceasefire, he told Fox News Monday.
Russia said Tuesday it looked as “very, very positively the constructive and meaningful contacts that took place” between Witkoff and senior Russian officials.