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МАРКО РУБІО ПОЯСНЮЄ ПОЗИЦІЮ США
Головне з заяв держсекретаря США Марко Рубіо в інтерв’ю телеканалам CBS, Fox та ABC News:
▪️США хочуть не припинення вогню, а повного врегулювання конфлікту в Україні;
▪️США не перебувають за крок від досягнення угоди щодо України, до неї ще далеко;
▪️Нові санкції США означали б, що можливості врегулювати кризу в Україні немає;
▪️США не прийматимуть чи відхилятимуть вимоги РФ, це має зробити Україна;
▪️Путін займає ключове місце на світовій арені, з ним потрібно мати справу;
▪️Путін вже багато років займає ключове місце на світовій арені, тому контакт з ним для врегулювання в Україні є для США проявом здорового глузду. “У нього найбільший у світі арсенал тактичної ядерної зброї і другий за величиною арсенал стратегічної ядерної зброї. Всі ЗМІ останні 4-5 років тільки й роблять, що говорять про Путіна”.
▪️США вважають, що РФ та Україні буде необхідно обговорити обмін територіями;
▪️Ніхто не хоче повторення конфлікту в Україні, тому потрібно обговорити гарантії безпеки;
▪️Зустріч Трампа з Зеленським буде сконцентрована на гарантіях безпеки;
▪️Європейські лідери їдуть до США не для того, щоб захистити Зеленського від приниження;
▪️США не вважають, що будь-яка із сторін конфлікту в Україні близька до капітуляції;
▪️ Можливість нової угоди щодо ядерних озброєнь між РФ та США не обговорювалася.
Павло Гай-Нижник
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MARCO RUBIO EXPLAINS THE U.S. POSITION
Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Martha Raddatz of ABC This Week
QUESTION: And I’m joined now by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. Thanks for joining us this morning. President Trump has touted this summit as a huge success, but the President going into that said he wanted a ceasefire, he wanted the killing stopped, and there would be consequences. Let’s take another listen to what he said just before that summit.
QUESTION: Will Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop the war after your meeting on Friday?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes, they will. Yeah.
QUESTION: What will the consequences be?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: There will be consequences.
QUESTION: Sanctions? Tariffs?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: There will – I don’t have to say. There will be very severe consequences.
I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire.
QUESTION: So, Mr. Secretary, the fighting hasn’t stopped, the killing hasn’t stopped, and there is no ceasefire. What changed President Trump’s mind?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I don’t think his mind has changed at all. I think, ultimately, if this whole effort doesn’t work out, then there’s going to have to be additional consequences to Russia. But we’re trying to avoid that by reaching a peace agreement, and that’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take a lot of work. I think there were things that were identified in those talks that we just had a couple days ago that made some progress in some directions.
Now, obviously, in order for us to get a peace agreement, Ukraine has to be a part of it. They have to be included. They have to be involved. That’s why the President called them on the phone immediately after we got on the airplane, within an hour. He talked to them for long periods of time. That’s why President Zelenskyy will be traveling to Washington tomorrow, along with several European leaders as well, to continue to work on this.
We made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement, but there remain some big areas of disagreement. So we’re still a long ways off. I mean, we’re not at the precipice of a peace agreement. We’re not at the edge of one. But I do think progress was made towards one, and – but again, I mean, this is going to —
QUESTION: But Secretary Rubio, we don’t know what any of that progress is, and the President went into that meeting —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, you’re not going to.
QUESTION: Okay. The President went into that meeting saying he wanted a ceasefire, and there would be consequences if that – if they didn’t agree on a ceasefire in that meeting. And they didn’t agree to a ceasefire. So where are the consequences?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I don’t – that’s not the aim of this. I mean, look, first of all, you’re not going to reach a ceasefire or even a peace agreement —
QUESTION: The President said that was the aim.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, but you’re not going to reach a ceasefire or a peace agreement in a meeting in which only one side is represented. That’s why it’s important to bring both leaders together, and that’s the goal here. The President said what he’d like to see at some point is we make enough progress so both leaders, Zelenskyy and Putin, can meet somewhere and finalize this. The only way to finalize a peace agreement is you have to have both sides agree to it and both sides of it involved. How many times have we heard, from the Ukrainians and from others, there can – there is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine? Well, Ukraine wasn’t at the meeting. But this was a very important meeting.
Now, ultimately, if there isn’t a peace agreement, if there isn’t an end to this war, the President’s been clear: There are going to be consequences. But we’re trying to avoid that, and the way we’re trying to avoid those consequences is with an even better consequence, which is peace, the end of hostilities. That’s the aim. That’s the goal here. And the President – he deserves a lot of credit. This is not our – look, when he says this, it’s true. The United States is not at war. This is not our war. Ultimately, what daily life in America looks like would not be materially altered one way or another about what happens in Ukraine. We have dedicated time and energy to this because this President has made it a priority of his administration to promote peace and end or prevent wars. He’s made that a priority.
And I think he deserves a lot of credit for the amount of time and energy that we have invested in something like this, and he’s the only one in the world that could do it. Okay? None of these other leaders in Europe could get Putin to a meeting to talk seriously about any of this. So this is going to be difficult. It’s been going on for three and a half years. You have two very entrenched sides. And we’re going to have to continue to work and chip away at it. I think we made some real progress. You talked about not knowing what was discussed; these peace deals, these peace agreements and negotiations, they don’t work when they’re conducted in the media, either through leaks or through lies. And usually they’re both the same thing, lying leaks. Okay? They don’t work if you do it that way. And they don’t work —
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary —
SECRETARY RUBIO: — if you go out and say aggressive and abrasive things about one side or the other because then they just walk away.
QUESTION: Can you name any concessions that Vladimir Putin made during this meeting? Has he – has – have any concessions —
SECRETARY RUBIO: I wouldn’t name them on your program.
QUESTION: Have any concessions been asked?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I wouldn’t name them on your program. Why would I do that?
QUESTION: Where is the pressure?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, of course, because you can’t have a peace agreement – no, you can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides give and get. You can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions. That’s a fact. That’s true in virtually any negotiation. If not, it’s just called surrender, and neither side is going to surrender.
So both sides are going to have to make concessions, so of course concessions were asked. But what utility would there be of me going on a program and tell you, we wagged our finger at Putin and told him, you must do this and you must do that? It’s going to make – it’s only going to make it harder and less likely that they’re going to agree to these things.
So these negotiations – as much as everyone would love it to be a live pay-per-view event, these discussions only work best when they are conducted privately, in serious negotiations, in which people who have to go back and respond to constituencies – because even totalitarian governments have constituencies they have to respond to – people have to go back and defend these agreements that they make. And so – and figure out a way to explain them to people.
So we need to create space for concessions to be made, but of course concessions were asked.
QUESTION: Do you – does the President favor giving up territory that Ukraine now controls, specifically in the Donetsk region? Sources are telling us that’s what was asked.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, okay. Well, first of all, I mean, Putin has given repeated speeches for two and a half years – there’s one they always cite – which talks about taking most of Ukraine, and his view of history and how all – so forth and so on. The second thing the President – so we know what their side is demanding, and we obviously know the Ukrainians are not in agreement with any of that.
The second point I would make is the President has said repeatedly, when it comes to territories and territorial claims, that’s ultimately something Ukraine will have to decide. It’s their territory. It’s their country. Ultimately, what they’re willing to live with is what they’ll have to decide on. Maybe the answer is they’re not willing to live with any of this; we don’t know, but that’s what we need to explore.
In the meantime, the one thing we do know that Ukraine has said repeatedly, and publicly talked about, is security guarantees. They need to be able to enter into security guarantees that ensure that this is never going to happen again, that they’re not going to get reinvaded in two and a half or three years or four years or whenever it may be. They don’t want to be back here again. They want to be able to go on to rebuild their country and live their lives. That’s a very reasonable request. That’s something we’re working on, and that’s something the Russian side has to understand, obviously, is that as a sovereign country, Ukraine has a right – like every sovereign country – to enter into security alliances and agreements with other countries.
So these are one – some of the things that we’ll be discussing.
QUESTION: Critics of President Trump will say the pomp and circumstances – the pomp and circumstance, the red carpet, the warm handshake – that President Trump simply lost that, that Putin gained there just by being on the world stage and walking down a red carped with the President. Your reaction to that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I mean, critics of President Trump are always going to find something to criticize. I don’t pay attention to it anymore. But I will tell you this: Putin is already on the world stage. He’s already on the world stage. The guy’s conducting a full-scale war in Ukraine; he’s already on the world stage. He has the world’s largest tactical nuclear arsenal in the world, and the second largest strategic nuclear arsenal in the world. He’s already on the world stage.
When I hear people say that – oh, it elevates him – well, all we do is talk about Putin all the time. All the media has done is talk about Putin all the time for the last four or five years. That doesn’t mean he’s right about the war. That doesn’t mean he’s justified about the war. Put all that aside. It means you’re not going to have a peace agreement without – between Russia and Ukraine, you’re not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine, without dealing with Putin. That’s not – that’s just common sense. I shouldn’t even have to say it.
So people can say whatever they want. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to get the Russian side to agree to things that they don’t want to agree to if we’re going to have peace. If not, there’ll just be a war, they’ll keep killing each other, and life will go on in America and in the rest of the world but not for Ukraine. So the President has invested a lot of time in trying to bring an end to this war. He deserves credit for doing that. He gets criticism for doing that. He could have just let this war go on. The President could have just said, this is Biden’s war, it started under him, we’ll do what we can for Ukraine, but we’re going to focus on other things. He could have easily said that.
QUESTION: But there – let – just a final point here.
SECRETARY RUBIO: But he’s the only leader in the world that can get Putin to a meeting to talk about serious things.
QUESTION: Just a final point here. So at this point, even though he demanded sanctions – no sanctions, no ceasefire, and no deadlines?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, but ultimately – first of all, about deadlines, the deadline is as soon as possible. We want this war to end as soon as possible. I mean, that’s why we’re working on it. In terms of sanctions, look, at the end of the day, if we can’t reach a peace agreement here and this war continues and so forth, then I anticipate you’ll see the President take further action. He’s already made that clear.
The problem is this – let’s use our heads here. The problem is this: The minute you levy additional sanctions, strong additional sanctions, the talking stops. Talking stops. And at that point, the war just continues. You’ve probably just added six, eight, nine, 12 more months to the war, if not longer. More people dead, more people killed, more people maimed, more families destroyed, okay? That’s what happens if you do that.
Now, we may end up being at a point where we have to do that, where there is no other recourse and that’s the end. By the way, there already are sanctions on Russia. The President hasn’t lifted any sanctions on Russia. They’re already facing sanctions – severe sanctions – and they’re facing them from the Europeans as well. So we may very well reach a point where everyone concludes no peace is going to happen here, we’re going to have to do more sanctions; but when you do that you are basically walking away from any prospect of a negotiated settlement here, which is what everyone is asking us to do.
Everyone, including the Ukrainians and all the countries of Europe, are begging the United States to be engaged, engage Putin, and try to get him to agree to a peace agreement. They’re all asking us to do that. They all are. And the minute you levy new sanctions, those talks probably stop for the foreseeable future, and that means the war continues for the foreseeable future. I hope that doesn’t happen. We may very well wind up there, but we’re going to try to do everything to prevent it because we want to reach a peace agreement.
QUESTION: Okay. Thanks very much, Secretary Rubio. We hope you – that happens.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Sunday Morning Futures
QUESTION: Joining me now is the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also on the trip to Alaska with President Trump and who will be there tomorrow with President Trump and Zelenskyy at the White House. Mr. Secretary, thanks so much for joining us this morning.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
QUESTION: Why did President Trump’s meeting with Putin end with no ceasefire, and what does Putin want?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, yeah. Well, a couple things. First of all, if you recall, there’s no way you can have a meeting like that – and we never said there was going to be a deal coming out of the meeting because the Ukrainians are not there. This is a war between two countries. It’s not America. It’s Ukraine and Russia. We met with the Russian side. We’ve spoken repeatedly with the Ukrainian side. We’ll see them again tomorrow in person along with our allies in Europe. So I do think some progress was made in that talk.
In terms of narrowing down the issue set, and now these are hard issues that remain – the conversation about where the territorial lines are going to be, questions about long-term security guarantees and who Ukraine can have military alliances with, things like that – these are difficult things. But I do believe we made progress in narrowing down the issue set, but there’s a lot of work that remains.
There’s still – this is a – there’s a reason why this war has been going on for three and a half years. It’s a war that never would have happened had President Trump been president, but he inherited it, and now he’s trying to do everything he can to bring about peace. He’s made peace a priority of his administration, as you’ve seen with all the peace deals we’ve been able to achieve throughout the world. This one’s the hardest one. Everyone acknowledges that. But he’s the only one in the world that has any chance of doing it.
Look, peace may not be possible at the end of the day. We don’t know. But if it is possible, he’s the only one that can get it done, and that’s why everyone’s asking him. They’re asking him to meet with Putin, and they’re also asking him to come here tomorrow and meet with him to talk further about what we do next.
QUESTION: A European diplomat has confirmed to Fox that President Trump supports Putin’s proposal for Russia to take full control of Luhansk and Donetsk, all of Donbas. Do you support this move?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No. First of all, I don’t know who told you that, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. I mean, the President has said that in terms of territories and stuff, these are things that Zelenskyy is going to have to decide on. These are things that the Ukrainian side is going to have to agree to. That’s – all the President is trying to do here is narrow down the open issues, narrow them down and then see if we can play some role in bringing that closer together so we can stop and end this war once and for all.
Look, this war is only going to get worse. It’s not going to get better. You’ve seen that in the escalation in the attacks. Russia’s economy is now 100 percent full-time war footing. They are producing munitions. The Ukrainians are as well. Both sides are hitting each other very, very hard, and the war is only going to get worse. It’s not going to get better.
So he’s trying to do everything he can to bring it to an end, but people that are out there talking what they don’t know with all these stupid leaks and things of that nature, they all want to just sound important. They don’t know what they’re talking about. The President has been very – the President’s been very clear. He – in terms of, like, what Zelenskyy is going to agree to, that’s up to them to decide. They’re going to have to decide what they’re willing to give and ultimately what they’re going to get, what they’re going to demand as well.
Both sides are going to – but here’s what I can tell you for certain. You can’t have a peace deal between two warring factions unless both sides agree to give up something and both sides agree that the other side gets something, right? Otherwise, if one side gets everything they want, that’s not a peace deal. It’s called surrender. And I don’t think this is a war that’s going to end anytime soon on the basis of surrender.
So this is tough stuff. I mean, it’s difficult to bring these two sides together. We’ve made some progress, we believe, and now we’ll have to follow up on that progress. And ultimately, where this should lead is to a meeting between the three leaders, between Zelenskyy, Putin, and President Trump, where we could finalize it. But we’ve got to get this thing closer before we get to that point.
QUESTION: What does Europe want, Secretary?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, look, I think the role that Europe can play ultimately in the long term is on security guarantees that Ukraine has been talking about. They should play a key element in that regard. And I also think the Europeans are very helpful being in the room sometimes and sort of giving ideas about what accommodations can be made and what flexibility the Ukrainian side could have.
So that’s the role that they’ve played up to this point. The President invited them to come here. He told President Zelenskyy to come on Monday and bring European leaders that he chose to bring with him, so there’s a handful of heads of state that will be here as well tomorrow at the invitation of the President to see if we can make some progress on some of these points.
The President spoke to many of these leaders on the airplane – I think it was 2 o’clock in the morning our time, it was probably 8 o’clock or 9 o’clock in the morning their time – on our way back from Alaska. And there it was – and then yesterday I had a call with all the national security advisors of the different countries.
So we’ve got a work agenda ahead of us over the next few days, and we’ve been talking about these things now for a while as well, so – because we also talked to them before. We had multiple meetings and conversations with them leading up to the events in Alaska. So they can play a very constructive role here, but ultimately, only President Trump – if a peace deal is possible, he’s the only one that can bring it about.
QUESTION: Is Europe still buying Russian oil?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, if you look at the oil that’s going to China and being refined, a lot of that is then being sold back into Europe. Europe’s also buying natural gas still. Now, there are countries trying to get – to wean themselves off of it, but there’s more Europe can do with regards to their own sanctions. If they’re – they always talk about sanctions, and they’ve got a sanctions package coming out as well, but – an additional sanctions package supposedly coming out soon. So – but for us, I think the most important role that Europe can play here is to have a constructive role in building up those security guarantees that will allow Ukraine the potential flexibility to make a deal on the rest of the issues that are at stake.
QUESTION: Well, I mean, wouldn’t that be a major lever to pull, to put sanctions on Europe or punish Europe for continuing to buy oil and gas from Russia? Is that something on the table?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I don’t know about on Europe directly, obviously, but certainly there are implications to secondary sanctions. If you put secondary sanctions on a country – let’s say you were to go after the oil sales of Russian oil to China. Well, China just refines that oil. That oil is then sold into the global marketplace, and anyone who’s buying that oil would be paying more for it or, if it doesn’t exist, would have to find an alternative source for it. So we have heard, when you talk about the Senate bill that was being proposed where there was a hundred percent tariffs on China and India, we did hear from a number of European countries – not in press releases but we heard from them – some concern about what that could mean.
But look, I don’t want to get into a tit-for-tat with the Europeans on this. I think they can play a very constructive role here in helping us get to that point. But – and the President has kept them in the loop. The first call the President made as soon as the meeting with Putin was over was to Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte, who will be there tomorrow as well. We’ve been in touch with them over and over again with regards to this process.
So I think the President’s done an incredible job here of trying to bring the sides together. There’s a lot of work that still remains. You don’t have a deal, as the President says, until you have a deal. This is not an easy deal. This is not a war that began under President Trump. It’s not – as you saw acknowledged at the press conference there in Alaska, it’s actually a war that would not have happened had President Trump been in the White House. He inherits a three-year-old war, and now he’s trying to untangle it, and – because if this falls apart, this thing is going to get far worse and go on much longer. You have thousands and thousands of more people are going to die and be injured as a result of this.
QUESTION: Can you give us any clarity on a timeline in terms of the U.S.’s thinking? I mean, obviously there’s no ceasefire in place right now. What are the repercussions? Are we just going to watch the murders continue?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, look, at some point, a decision has to be made if a peace deal is possible or not. If at some point it becomes clear that both sides are so far apart and so dug in that we’re just not near a peace deal, then the President will have a decision to make about how much more time do we invest in it and what actions does he take then.
But I want everyone to understand if tomorrow – if this morning the President woke up and said I’m putting these terrible, strong sanctions on Russia, that’s fine. It may make people feel good for a couple hours, but here’s what you’re basically saying. You’re saying talks are over; for the foreseeable future, for the next year or year and a half, there’s no more talks.
Because there’s no one else in the world that can talk to him, okay? Putin is not going to meet with Macron. He’s not going to meet with the UK, with all due respect to these leaders. None of these leaders are going to be able to bring him to the table and talk to them. There’s only one leader in the world that has any chance of bringing these two sides together. If there is a chance, there’s only one leader in the world that can do it, and that’s President Trump. And you forfeit that role the minute you put additional sanctions on him. We may get to that point, unfortunately, but if we do, it means that peace talks are no longer possible, and that would be very unfortunate, because the real-world ramifications are that while we’re here calling each other names and doing TV interviews about this stuff and all of that in American politics, there are people who today will be injured and killed in the battlefield and in cities in Ukraine, on the front lines, and even in Russia. Even as we speak, people that have nothing to do with this war are suffering as a result of it.
And I think we are very fortunate and blessed and should be thankful to have a President that has made peace and the achievement of peace a priority of his administration. We’ve seen it in Cambodia and Thailand. We’ve seen it in India-Pakistan. We’ve seen it in Rwanda and the DRC. And we’re going to continue to pursue any opportunities we can find to bring about peace in the world.
QUESTION: Understood. What are you expecting to present to Zelenskyy tomorrow?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think tomorrow’s conversations, a lot of it will be centered around what are the kinds of security guarantees that Ukraine is looking for, because what Ukraine is looking for here is how do – okay, the war ends. How do we make sure this doesn’t happen again? How do we make sure that, in two or three years, the Russians don’t come back at us? So they want guarantees built up so that they can protect themselves or prevent such a war from occurring in the future.
So the details of what that would look like is something that hopefully we’ll spend a lot of time discussing tomorrow. We had a long conversation about it yesterday with the national security advisers of multiple European countries. Some work has already gone into it, but now we’re at a stage where we need to build some details on it, and then ultimately, obviously present that to the Russian side, who – and get them to accept it. But first we have to have our ducks in order.
QUESTION: Well, what kind of security guarantees is the U.S. willing to make?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that’ll be part of the conversation tomorrow. At the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that any security guarantee that – the Europeans, there’s a lot they can do and a lot they can offer, and it would be a huge concession. It would be a very big move by the President if he were to offer a U.S. commitment to a security guarantee. That will be his decision to make. And I want people to understand that. That’s – that tells you how bad – if he does it, it tells you how badly he wants peace, how much he values peace, that he would be willing to make a concession like that. But ultimately, that will be a decision for the President to make.
That’s what we’ll talk about tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll spend six, seven hours talking about these things, maybe more, and sort of get to a point where we have something more concrete. We’ve done a lot of work on it already, but a little – some more work is required before we can say that we have a plan on security guarantees that unifies us.
QUESTION: Well, what other economic levers does the U.S. have to use here? I mean, you’ve got the secondary sanctions and you said perhaps there is something to be done with China. What about designating Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, which is something Lindsey Graham has been working on?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, those designations can be useful from time to time, but in this particular case, it’s not going to change the course of the war. Look, can the U.S. inflict greater pain on the Russian economy going after the banking sector, the oil companies, and things of this nature? Of course we could. Of course we can. And that always remains, unfortunately, an option. But just understand: If we get to the point where we’re doing that, okay, it may make people feel good, and it may have an implication on Russia in the long term, but in the short term, what it means is that talks are over, that at this point we are basically now stuck with another year and a half or two of war, of death, of destruction. That’s what it means.
We may get to that point, sadly and unfortunately, because peace is not possible. But that – we’re trying to avoid getting to that point. We want to give every opportunity possible for the Russians to say yes to something that Ukraine can live with, and that’s what we’re trying to do. And I think the President deserves a lot of credit for wanting to do that. No one else has tried to do that. Joe Biden couldn’t have done it. No other leader in the world could do it. Frankly, he doesn’t have to do it.
Look, the war in Ukraine gets a lot of attention, and I’m not saying it’s an irrelevant thing. It’s a very tragic thing that’s going on. But life in America on a daily basis will be largely unaffected, whether there’s peace in Ukraine or not. That’s just a fact. We have a lot of issues we’re focused on, not just at home but around the world. But the fact that the President has dedicated this much time to a war between two countries on another continent tells you how much he values peace. And we should be very thankful and grateful that we have a President who’s a President of peace, who values peace and wants to use the power of his office to achieve the end of wars and the prevention of new ones.
QUESTION: But isn’t the U.S. directly impacted because of that rare earth minerals deal? How important is that deal, and has Putin already affected that deal by bombing the region?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, that deal is important but, I mean, it’s not – the United States has other sources of rare earth minerals. I think that deal’s very important for Ukraine in terms of their own reconstruction and rebuilding, and to have American partners in a postwar Ukraine is of great benefit to Ukraine. And obviously, it would be great for us too. But I don’t think that alone justifies us being behind a war effort here. What we want to be able to do here is be behind a peace effort. We want to achieve the end of a war.
So I’m not saying our interests in Ukraine are zero. What I am saying is the amount of time and energy that this administration has placed on this war is something that people should compare to some of the other issues we have around the world that deserve our attention as well. And the President just deserves a lot of credit for putting so much time and energy behind something that is very, very difficult to end. It’s a very difficult war to end.
The Russians feel very strongly that they have the upper hand, that they’re making progress. They don’t necessarily feel pressure. And the Ukrainians feel very strongly that they were invaded, that they’ve been aggrieved, and that what the Russians have done is horrifying and should be stopped. So both sides are pretty dug in. And we don’t have sanctions on Ukraine; we have sanctions on Russia. We don’t provide weapons to Russia; we provide weapons and assistance to Ukraine. So the U.S. has done a lot already with regards to this.
But this President is trying to figure out how to end it, how to stop it. And I think that’s incredible, that we have a President willing to use the power of the United States and the power – that’s the goal here. It’s not to win the war, it’s to end it.
QUESTION: So will you continue to put pressure on Russia in all ways in order to stop this? What is the next pressure point?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, in order to have a peace deal, both sides are going to have to make concessions. And so obviously, the Russian side is going to have to make concessions. One side cannot get everything they want. If one – if in a negotiation one side gets everything they want, that’s not a peace deal; that’s a surrender. That’s the terms of surrender. And I don’t think you’re going to see surrender by either side anytime soon.
So the reality of it is, in order to make a peace deal, Ukraine is going to have to accept things it doesn’t like and Russia is going to have to accept things it doesn’t like.
QUESTION: Okay.
SECRETARY RUBIO: And we need to be able to use the influence of the presidency to push both sides to make those concessions.
QUESTION: Did Putin bring up a potential nuclear deal with the United States as part of this?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No. No, the talks were almost exclusively – and I would say 99 percent were just about the war and about how to bring it to an end, and the Russian perspective. And don’t – people should not underestimate the value of meeting in person. They’ve had multiple phone conversations, but meeting in person really allows you to get a better gauge of how strongly one side feels about certain issues. We’ve met with the Ukrainians dozens of times. It’s our first meeting with the Russian side in terms of at the level of President Putin. And obviously the – hopefully, the next time we meet, it’ll be because Zelenskyy is in the room and they’re getting close to finalizing a peace deal.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, we wish you success tomorrow. Thanks very much for being here.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.
QUESTION: Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face the Nation
QUESTION: Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders are heading to Washington Monday to meet with President Trump to discuss next steps following Mr. Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin. The awkward conclusion to Friday’s summit yielded no formal agreement, with Vladimir Putin still insisting that Ukraine turn over the lands seized by Russia in the war plus additional territory, something that President Zelenskyy continues to refuse.
We begin with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who attended those talks in Anchorage. Good morning to you, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Good morning. Thank you.
QUESTION: Vladimir Putin did not give President Trump the ceasefire he sought, and now Putin says the root causes of the conflict have to be resolved in a peace agreement. Isn’t the root cause the fact that Russia invaded in the first place?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, ultimately, yeah. But, I mean, what he means by “root causes” is long historical complaints that we’ve heard repeatedly. This is not a new argument. He’s been making this for a long time, and it’s the argument that it’s Western encroachment. I don’t want to get into it; it’s just so long.
QUESTION: Yeah.
SECRETARY RUBIO: But the bottom line is that all of – we’re not going to focus on all of that stuff. We’re going to focus on this: Are they going to stop fighting or not, and what it’s going to take to stop the fighting. And what it’s going to take to stop the fighting, if we’re being honest and serious here, is both sides are going to have to give and both sides should expect to get something from this. And that’s a very difficult thing to do. It’s very difficult because Ukraine obviously feels harmed, and rightfully so, because they were invaded; and the Russian side because they feel like they’ve got momentum in the battlefield and, frankly, don’t care – don’t seem to care very much about how many Russian soldiers die in this endeavor. They just churn through it.
So I think what the President deserves a lot of credit for is the amount of time and energy that his administration is placing on reaching a peace agreement for a war that’s not a war that started under him. It’s half – it’s on the other side of the world. That said, I mean, it’s relevant to us, but there are a lot of other issues he could be focused on.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RUBIO: So tomorrow we’ll be meeting with President Zelenskyy. We’ll be meeting with European leaders. We just met with Putin. He’s dedicated a lot of time and energy because he has made it a priority of his administration to stop or end war – stop wars or prevent them. And right now, this is the biggest war going on in the world. It’s the biggest war in Europe since World War II. We’re going to continue to do everything we can to reach an agreement that ends the dying and the killing and the suffering that’s going on right now.
QUESTION: Well, you know this well, how long these kind of diplomatic negotiations often take. President Trump was telling European leaders what was discussed was Putin demanding control of Donetsk, a region in the east that his forces do not fully hold, and the UK estimates that taking that full area could be as long as another four years. Putin also is demanding Russian be an official language in Ukraine and something regarding Russian Orthodox churches.
Did the U.S. accept all of what Putin laid out at that table?
SECRETARY RUBIO: The United States is not in a position to accept anything or reject anything because ultimately, it’s up to the Ukrainians. They’re the ones that Russia has to make peace with, and Ukraine with Russia.
QUESTION: Well, the President said he did come to some agreements.
SECRETARY RUBIO: It’s up to the Ukrainians to make these conditions. Well, the agreements were that we were going to try to do things like, for example, get a leader – a leaders meeting. We have to make enough progress so that we can sit down, President Zelenskyy and President Putin in the same place – which is what President Zelenskyy has been asking for – and reach a final agreement that ends this war.
Now, there were some concepts and ideas discussed that we know the Ukrainians could be very supportive of in that meeting. I don’t think it’s – we’re not going to negotiate this in the media. I understand that everybody wants to know what happened, but ultimately there are things that were discussed as part of this meeting that are potentials for breakthroughs, that are potentials for progress. We’ll be discussing that more in depth tomorrow with our European allies, with the Ukrainians that are coming over. We’ll be discussing all of these things because ultimately, we do need to find areas where we’re making progress and try to begin to narrow the gap between the two sides.
But there’s a reason why this war has been going on for three and a half years, and that is when it comes to the big issues here, there are still some big differences between both sides. Let’s see how much progress we can continue to make. It’s a – it’s not been easy, but it’s something the President has made a priority: peace.
QUESTION: Yeah.
SECRETARY RUBIO: And he deserves a lot of credit for that.
QUESTION: But ultimately, if Vladimir Putin is going to be offered land that he has not seized yet but negotiates his way into, doesn’t this set a dangerous precedent that the United States now accepts this concept that it is okay to seize land by force?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, Putin’s already seized land by force, and that in and of itself is not a positive precedent. This whole war is a negative precedent.
QUESTION: Are you demanding withdrawal?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, again, here’s the – in order to have a deal here, to end – reach the end of this conflict, both sides are going to have to make concessions. That’s just a fact.
QUESTION: But does that mean accepting where Russian forces are?
SECRETARY RUBIO: In any negotiation, if – no, no, but if – but this is not about acceptance. This is about what Ukraine can accept and what Russia can accept. They both have to accept it. Otherwise there won’t be a peace deal, okay? If there aren’t concessions, if one side gets everything they want, that’s called surrender. That’s called the end of the war through surrender, and that’s not what we’re close to doing because neither side here is on the verge of surrender or anything close to it.
So in order for there to be a peace deal – this is just a fact. We may not like it. It may not be pleasant. It may be distasteful. But in order for there to be an end to the war, there are things Russia wants that it cannot get and there are things Ukraine wants that it’s not going to get. Both sides are going to have to give up something in order to get to the table, in order to make this happen. That’s just the way it is. And I mean, the sooner we accept that, that’s the reality.
Now, what those things are is going to be up to both sides. There’s no conditions that can be imposed on Ukraine. They’re going to have to accept things, but they’re going to have to get things too. And so, for example, Ukraine is a sovereign country. They have a right, like every sovereign country does in the world, to have – to enter into security alliances with other countries to prevent an invasion in the future, to prevent threats to their national security. That’s not an unreasonable request. That’s something that needs to be worked on.
Territories will have to be discussed. It’s just a fact. And there are things that maybe Russia is holding now that they’re going to have to give up. Who knows? The point is we need to create a scenario where that becomes possible, and that’s why this has been so hard, because neither side up to now has been willing to give on some of these things. But we’ll see if that’s possible.
QUESTION: Yeah.
SECRETARY RUBIO: It may not be, but we’re going to try and we’re going to do everything we can to try to achieve a peace.
QUESTION: Well, I understand you can’t get into specifics in a public conversation, but we’re looking at Russian troops and strikes intensifying. Did you hear anything from Vladimir Putin that indicated he is willing to make a single concession?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think there are a couple – I mean, not enough for Ukraine. If not, we would be announcing a peace deal this morning, right? But certainly there are some things. We notice changes. There are some changes that I think are possible. I think there are some concepts that were discussed that could potentially lead to something. But again, all of these things have to be verifiable. We have – it isn’t real until it’s real. I mean, one thing is what you say you might be willing to consider; another thing is your willingness to do it, and it always becomes a tradeoff in all of this.
But you talk about the intensifying strikes on the Russian side. Yeah, I mean, they’re a full-time war machine. I mean, that’s what’s happening. The Russian economy has basically been turned into a full-time wartime economy. They have a lot of people. It’s a big country. It’s not just large geographically. It has huge populations. It continues to churn through people. They lost – 20,000 Russian soldiers were killed last month, in July, in this war. That just tells you the price they’re willing to pay.
I’m not saying any of this is admirable. I’m saying that this is the reality of the war that we’re facing. It’s become attrition in some ways. It’s a meat grinder, and they just have more meat to grind.
QUESTION: Well, let me ask you about the security bit you just mentioned there, because Italy’s prime minister says that President Trump revived the idea of security guarantees inspired by NATO’s Article 5 and a collective security clause that would involve the United States. How does that work?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I mean —
QUESTION: Are these U.S. troops and U.S. monitors?
SECRETARY RUBIO: So that’s what we’re going to be working on. Well, that’s what we’re going to be working on. That’s why – that’s one of the reasons why – I talked yesterday to all the national security advisors, a bunch of them from the different European countries; there are European leaders coming here tomorrow, heads of state coming tomorrow along with President Zelenskyy, to discuss this in more detail. I mean, the constructs of something like this needs to be built out. One – a concept is one thing; the reality – how it’s built and how it would work is another.
But those are the kinds of talks that we’re going to be having with them, along with some of the other issues that are at play. But that is one of – if you were to break this thing down, I mean, there are – obviously there needs to be an agreement on territories and where the lines are going to be drawn. That’s not going to be very easy. That’s going to be tough. I think there has to be some discussion about security guarantees for Ukraine because they don’t want this war to – none of us want to see this war in the future. They’re a sovereign country. They have a right to have security agreements with other countries and security alliances with other countries.
And then there’s the whole issue of reconstruction —
QUESTION: Including the United States?
SECRETARY RUBIO: — and how do you rebuild the country.
Well, potentially. Like I said, that’s what we’re going to be having a conversation about, and that’s what we’re going to be meeting – that’s why they’re all coming here tomorrow, and that’s why we’ve been talking on the phone for the last 48 hours with them and even leading up to it. Throughout the week there were various meetings just to sort of build out some of these ideas.
So all of these right now are ideas or concepts that require some more specificity. We’ll need to work with our partners to see what that looks like, and I think that’s an area where potential progress is real. But that alone won’t be enough. There’s a bunch of other things that have to be worked through here.
QUESTION: Yeah. Well, Russia claims it has rescued 700,000 children. I know you know that the warrant out for Vladimir Putin’s arrest is for the state-sponsored abduction of kids. I’ve seen estimates there are something like 30,000 Ukrainian children who have been abducted. Is the United States demanding, or at least even just as a statement of goodwill here, that Russia return these children?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I mean, we’ve repeatedly raised that issue on – in every forum possible. And those have also been, by the way, topics of discussion not just in our meetings with the Ukrainians but in the negotiations and talks that were going on between Ukraine and Russia at the technical level. These talks were going on in Türkiye, as an example – Türkiye over the last few months.
QUESTION: Yeah, nothing so far from the Russians.
SECRETARY RUBIO: That’s been a topic of discussion as well.
Well, it’s unfortunate. Children should be returned to their families. We – on that position I don’t think there’s any ambiguity on our side, and they shouldn’t even be a bargaining chip in regards to a broader negotiation. But it’s just one more element of how tragic this war is. After three and a half years, this war is getting worse. It’s not getting better. You’ve made the point about the uptick in strikes. This is a war. It’s going to get worse. It’s not going to get better. And that’s why the President is investing so much time in bringing this to an end.
And by the way, everyone is begging us to be involved in this.
QUESTION: Yeah.
SECRETARY RUBIO: The Europeans want us involved. The Ukrainians want us involved. Obviously the Russians want us involved. Because the President is the only leader in the world – if this is possible, he’s the only one that can help make it happen.
QUESTION: Well, he’s got the leverage over Vladimir Putin if he wanted to crush his economy or at least do more damage to it, but you have held off on those secondary sanctions. President Trump told Fox News his advice to President Zelenskyy is make a deal: Russia is a very big power, and they’re not. You know there is concern from the Europeans that President Zelenskyy is going to be bullied into signing something away. That’s why you have these European leaders coming as backup tomorrow. Can you reassure them?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, it isn’t. That’s not why they’re coming as – that’s not true. No, but that’s not – why – that’s not true. They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied. They’re not coming – in fact, they’re coming here tomorrow because —
QUESTION: In that February Oval Office meeting in front of television cameras, where President Zelenskyy was dressed down —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Do you know how many meetings we’ve had since then?
QUESTION: Oh, no, I know, and I was just up in Alaska watching the one with Vladimir Putin —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, but we’ve had a bunch of meetings since then.
QUESTION: — where a red carpet was rolled out for the Russian leader.
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, but with Zelenskyy. We’ve had more meetings —
QUESTION: It was very different.
SECRETARY RUBIO: We’ve had – we’ve had one meeting with Putin and, like, a dozen meetings with Zelenskyy. So – but that’s not true. They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied. They’re coming here tomorrow because we’ve been working with the Europeans – we talked to them last week; there were meeting in the UK over the previous weekend. The President’s talked to these leaders —
QUESTION: And they said President Trump was going to demand a ceasefire.
SECRETARY RUBIO: — as early as Thursday. No, no, but you said that they’re coming here tomorrow to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied. They’re not coming here tomorrow – oh, this is such a stupid media narrative that they’re coming here tomorrow because Trump is going to bully Zelenskyy into a bad deal. We’ve been working with these people for weeks – for weeks – on this stuff. They’re coming here tomorrow because they chose to come here tomorrow. We invited them to come. We invited them to come. The President invited them to come.
QUESTION: But the President told those European leaders last week that he wanted a ceasefire. The President went on television, said he would walk out of the meeting if Vladimir Putin didn’t agree with one. He said there would be severe consequences if he didn’t agree to one. He said he’d walk out in two minutes. He spent three hours talking to Vladimir Putin, and he did not get one. So there’s some mixed messages.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Because obviously something – things happened during that meeting – well, because obviously things – look, our goal here is not to stage some production for the world to say, oh, how dramatic, he walked out. Our goal here is to have a peace agreement to end this war, okay? And obviously we felt – and I agreed – that there was enough progress – not a lot of progress but enough progress made in those talks to allow us to move to the next phase. If not, we wouldn’t be having Zelenskyy flying all the way over here. We wouldn’t be having all the Europeans coming all the way over here.
Now, understand and take with a grain of salt – I’m not saying we’re on the verge of a peace deal, but I am saying that we saw movement, enough movement to justify a follow-up meeting with Zelenskyy and the Europeans, enough movement for us to dedicate even more time to this. You talk about the sanctions. Look, at the end of the day, if peace is not going to be possible here and this is just going to continue on as a war, people will continue to die by the thousands. The President has that option to then come in and impose new sanctions.
But if he did this now, the moment the President puts those additional sanctions, that’s the end of the talks. You’ve basically locked in at least another year to year and a half of war and death and destruction. We may unfortunately wind up there, but we don’t want to wind up there. We want to wind up with a peace deal that ends this war so Ukraine can go on with the rest of their lives and rebuild their country and be assured that this is never going to happen again. That’s the goal here. We’re going to do everything possible to make that happen if it’s doable. It will require both sides to make concessions. It will require both sides to get things they’re asking for. That’s how these deals are made, whether we like it or not.
QUESTION: Before I let you go, quickly, why did the State Department just announce that they’re halting visitor visas for all Gazans coming here for medical aid? Why would some of these kids, for example, who are coming to hospitals for treatment, be a threat?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, it’s not just kids. It’s a bunch of adults that are accompanying them. Second, we had outreach from multiple congressional offices asking questions about it, and so we’re going to re-evaluate how those visas are being granted, not just to the children but how those visas are being granted to the people who are accompanying them, and by the way, to some of the organizations that are facilitating it. There is evidence that’s been presented to us by numerous congressional offices that some of the organizations bragging about and involved in acquiring these visas have strong links to terrorist groups like Hamas, and so we are not going to be in partnership with groups that are friendly with Hamas.
So we need to – we’re going to pause those visas. There was just a small number of them issued to children, but they come with adults accompanying them, obviously. And we are going to pause this program and re-evaluate how those visas are being vetted and what relationship, if any, has there been by these organizations to the process of acquiring those visas. We’re not going to be in partnership with groups that have links or sympathies towards Hamas.
QUESTION: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, we have to leave it there for this morning. Thank you for joining us.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.
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