(NEW YORK) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerged from a 40-minute meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday with an acknowledgment that talks between Moscow and Kyiv for peace in Ukraine have not progressed much.
Rubio said he shared President Donald Trump’s “disappointment and frustration” with his Russian counterparts as the president has expressed distrust in Russian President Vladimir Putin and reversed his administration’s pause on weapons to Ukraine.
“We get a lot of bull**** thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
The president is “disappointed and frustrated that there’s not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict,” Rubio said.
Hours before Rubio’s scheduled meeting with Lavrov, their first face-to-face since February, Russia launched a “massive combined strike” of 18 missiles and 400 drones, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The attacks killed two and injured 16, and followed 10 days of drone strikes, which have often broken single-night records — and have marked a shift as Russia continues its summer offensive.
Trump said earlier this week that he was “very unhappy” with Moscow’s latest attacks on Kyiv — and said he is “looking at” an effort by congressional GOP to impose greater sanctions on Russia.
“As has been pointed out, we’ve seen an acceleration of attacks,” Rubio said. “I think it’s probably the largest drone attack in a city close to the Polish border, actually. So it’s a pretty deep strike.”
“I don’t want to overpromise,” he said about talks, citing Russia’s offensive.
Rubio said Russia brought a “new and different approach” to the negotiating table Thursday, but he tempered expectations about a development toward peace.
“I wouldn’t characterize it as something that guarantees peace,” he said.
The bilateral talks between the nations’ top diplomats — held on the sidelines of a summit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Malaysia — come after Trump said Tuesday he approved the transfer of defensive weapons to Ukraine because Putin is “killing too many people.”
The announcement appeared to reverse a Pentagon-ordered pause last week on some munitions scheduled for Ukraine. Rubio said it was “mischaracterized” in the press and was merely a “pause, pending review” of munitions that were both defensive and offensive.
“Generally speaking, aid to Ukraine continues along the schedule that Congress appropriated,” Rubio said.
Meanwhile, momentum on Capitol Hill for a bill to sanction Russia’s energy industry is building.
After Trump said he was looking at the package “very closely,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday “there’s a lot of interest in moving it.”
Rubio said that “we told [the Russians] that the moment would come where something like this could happen,” adding that Trump would need “flexibility” on enforcement of the sanctions regime.
Rubio wouldn’t say whether that moment had arrived, saying it was a question for the president.
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