Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not be attending peace negotiations with London’s Ukrainians and European authorities this week, the State Department announced citing logistics issues.
“As we know, Secretary Rubio is a busy person,” State Department spokesman Tammy Bruce said Tuesday.
“The meeting in London is still happening, and he will not be attending, but that is not a statement about the meeting. It is a statement about logistical issues in his schedule.”
The London story comes after Rubio and President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkov, met with European leaders in Paris last week about their efforts to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who serves as Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, will be joining the United States in upcoming meetings.
Russian news agency Tas It has been reported On Tuesday, Witkov is scheduled to visit Moscow this week, citing an aide from the Kremlin. Bruce said he could not confirm the report.
Trump, along with Rubio, “I hope this will be resolved diplomatically,” Bruce said of the war in his third year.
However, Rubio suggested after the Paris conference that if the US does not make any progress in negotiations, it could “go ahead” from trying to promote peace deals between Russia and the ukrain, despite the fact that Trump has made it clear he wants to end the violence.
“We’ve now reached the point where we need to decide whether this is possible or not,” Rubio told reporters Friday, starting from negotiations with his counterpart in Paris. “If not, I think we just need to move on.”
But Vice President Vance said Friday he believes things will move forward.
“Negotiations, I will not judge them in advance, but I feel optimistic that if this war works out, we can end this extremely brutal war,” Vance told reporters when he visited Rome.
Along the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has pledged to end the war in one night, but the president said last month that he was “a bit sarcasm” in the pledge. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukrainian Minister of Economy Julia Swillidenko I said She signed a memorandum with the United States ahead of a potential agreement to provide US access to Kiev’s natural resources that serve Ukraine’s security interests. Trump was scheduled to sign the contract during a visit from Ukrainian President Voldimi Zelensky earlier this year, but called for it after a controversial oval office meeting.
