The Trump administration warned that it may “move on” to other priorities if it determines it’s not possible to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The new tone towards efforts to reach a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine as US officials have met with each side, comes after Sec. of State Marco Rubio presented a peace proposal to Ukrainian and Russian officials.
"We need to figure out here now within a matter of days whether this is doable in the short term because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on from our perspective. The president feels very strongly about that,” Sec. of State Marco Rubio said, following talks in Paris with European and Ukrainian officials and a call with his Russian counterpart.
President Trump later said Rubio was right in saying they wanted to see the war end.
“If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we're just going to say, you're foolish, you're fools, you are horrible people, and we are going to just take a pass. But hopefully, we won't have to do that,” Trump said.
Rubio described the proposal as a broad framework.
“It’s a framework that gets us into a position to see, look, there are going to be differences; there’s no, no one’s saying this can be done in 12 hours. But we want to see how far apart it is and whether those differences are, can even be narrowed, if it’s even possible to get movement within the period of time we have in mind,” Rubio said.
Trump would not say whether he was prepared to walk away from his efforts entirely, offer a specific timeline or whether he would continue to support Ukraine militarily if the US did “take a pass.”
“Well, I'm not going to say that. because I think we're going to get it done,” he said.
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Experts in the region continued to warn about Russian intent.
“If Putin doesn't come off his maximalist position, and we say we're done trying to make a peace, if then we have two ways we can go forward. We can continue to supply Ukraine as they fight Russia. That would be not the best, but an acceptable solution. I think we all want a peace, but we want a just peace, not a Russian peace,” said retired General Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe. “If we stop trying to get a peace, and then our reaction is, we are also going to stop supplying Ukraine, then that is a tantamount to joining the Russian position for an unjust peace, and that would be a very bad outcome."
Breedlove said the principles “that we have on one side a war criminal leading an immoral, illegal and inhumane war, and that war was completely contrived by Mr. Putin,” should be a guiding factor to ending war in Ukraine, noted a “program of maximum pressure on Ukraine” but one of “maximum accommodation” for Russia, and that Russia has no intention of cooperating should be remembered in bargaining.
While the administration has pursued a maritime and energy infrastructure ceasefire, Russia has yet to agree to a full ceasefire as Ukraine indicated it was willing to do.
“The things that Russia can't get accomplished in this war they are asking the United States to do for them,” Breedlove said.
Trump has appeared to grow more frustrated.
Trump over the past several weeks said Russia faced a “psychological deadline” to agree to a ceasefire, threatened secondary sanctions on Russian oil and said Russia has to “get moving.”
“We need the fighting to stop, the killing to stop, and we need both sides, everybody, to step up and agree to peace. I think you've seen the Ukrainians in real time. They have agreed to a ceasefire with really no conditions, and now you're seeing the Russians dragging their feet. And I think, you know, President Trump and I know Secretary Rubio are becoming a little frustrated about it, and Secretary Rubio said, we don't want to have negotiations on negotiations. We want an agreement that ends the killing, and then we can get to an enduring peace. And I think that's the most important thing,” US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker told Scripps News Monday.
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Finding a solution for peace has been a significant effort for the administration in Trump’s second term, after he promised to end the war during his election bid while criticizing the amount of money the US had spent on Ukraine’s defense and calling for Europe to do more. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would settle the war before he took office. Once in the Oval Office, he sought dialogue with both Ukraine and the Russians, but softened the US tone towards Russian President Vladimir Putin, avoiding blaming him for the war, while increasing criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“I think the administration is finding out it's much harder to reach a deal to end this war than maybe they bargained for. That's probably not surprising to anyone who follows the war in Ukraine closely, unfortunately, and really there's, there's one party to blame here, and it's Russia. Russia does not have an interest in reaching an expeditious end to this war,” said David Salvo, managing director for the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund.
“To the administration's credit, it understands that Russia is clearly stalling here, and that's good. This is not just Ukraine's fault, in their mind, but I am still worried at the end of the day, it will look for excuses to blame both sides if a deal falls apart, rather than the clear party that's guilty,” added Salvo.
Friday afternoon, when asked if Putin was stalling, Trump told reporters “I’m going to let you know about that soon, if he is, but I hope not,” but maintained that “nobody’s playing anybody,” reiterating that he believes they have a “really good chance of getting it done.”
“You have to wonder about the party across the table acting in good faith,” said Catherine Sendak, the director of transatlantic defense and Security at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Sendak was hopeful that Rubio, Witkoff and others understand “perhaps some hard talk on the willingness of all the participants obviously Russia being the most critical, to act in good faith and really have hard conversations about what this could look like.”
Special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has become a key negotiator in the Trump administration, has met with Putin multiple times amidst the efforts to find an end to the war. Witkoff told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity earlier in the week following an engagement with the Russians that they came up with “…what Putin’s request is to have a permanent peace here. So beyond the ceasefire we got an answer to that.”
“This peace deal is about these so called five territories but there’s so much more to it. There’s security protocols, there’s you know no NATO, NATO, article five, it’s just a lot of detail attached to it. It’s a complicated situation rooted in some real problematic things happening between the two countries and I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very very important for the world at large,” Witkoff told Hannity.
Zelenskyy has described redlines as recognizing its occupied territories as Russian, and shared that they are not looking to discuss territory until a ceasefire is reached.
“Also I believe that Mr. Witkoff has taken on the strategy of the Russian side. I think it is very dangerous, because he is consciously or unconsciously, I don't know, spreading Russian narratives. In any case, it does not help,” the Ukrainian leader said Thursday prior to Rubio’s comments.
“What’s dangerous is that former-clown Zelenskyy is spending his time slandering Ambassador Witkoff, who is trying to end the war and save Ukrainian lives, instead of thanking President Trump for the weapons that allowed Ukraine to still exist today. While Zelenskyy throws tomatoes, the adults will continue trying to achieve peace,” a senior administration official said in response to Zelenskyy’s comments.
Bloomberg reported the proposal would ease sanctions on Russia and leave Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia under Russia’s control, that Ukrainian NATO membership would be off the table, citing European officials familiar with the matter, who also underscored security guarantees. Scripps News did not independently verify the report.
“Obviously, the term “security guarantees” came up because they come up in every meeting. We’ve heard about it. And it’s not an illegitimate desire. Every sovereign nation on Earth has a right to defend itself. Ukraine will have a right to defend itself and to enter into whatever agreements it wants to enter into on a bilateral basis with different countries and so forth,” Rubio said, but noted they are not working to that level of specifics yet.
“The terms are in some way familiar for those watching what Team Trump has been saying for months, which is the lines of control now would be roughly the lines of the general ceasefire and of course that requires concessions by Ukraine, territory which is now in Russian hands,” said former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, who is also the senior director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. “The terms are yet more favorable for the Kremlin which has been the pattern we’ve seen over the past 6 to 9 weeks but still since Putin’s aim remains to take control of Ukraine and since the White House has been so accommodating maybe Putin wants more."
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Following the talks in Paris on Ukraine between Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and officials from France, the UK and Ukraine, parties agreed to continue discussions next week in London, according to a European official.
At the same time, the US has continued to pursue a critical minerals deal with Ukraine, the countries signing a memorandum of intent this week for a ‘reconstruction investment fund.’
“President Trump has said that the time to get this done is now, and we are moving with all deliberate speed towards this end. This pledge from both countries demonstrates our commitment to finalizing this economic partnership for both the Ukrainian and American people,” a Treasury department spokesperson said.
“I thought there were some real positives laid out there. Now we’ll see if the deal ends up finalizing” said Sendak. “There’s some good stuff in there about collaboration, cooperation, making sure no critical minerals deal would impeded any kind of EU accession for Ukraine in the future.”
Trump indicated a deal could be signed potentially next week.
