Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Sunday that the negotiating skills of President Donald Trump will be an important factor in gauging the seriousness of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s commitment to ending the war in Ukraine.
Margaret Brennan, anchor of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” questioned Rubio whether he could have faith that any talks with Russia would be honest, given that Putin “likes to use diplomacy as a cover to distract while he continues to wage war.”
“In geopolitics, I don’t think anyone should trust anyone,” Rubio replied. In my opinion, these things can only be confirmed by doing them. “Peace” is a verb, not a noun, as I mentioned yesterday. It’s a performance. You need to do something tangible to make progress.
Continuing, Rubio stated that Trump is “no better negotiator in American politics” and predicted that the president “will know very quickly whether this is a real thing or whether this is an effort to buy time.”
After all, Rubio didn’t want to pass judgment on the matter. “I don’t want to foreclose the opportunity to end the conflict that’s already cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and continues every single day to be increasingly a war of attrition on both sides.”
Almost three years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine on a massive scale. Both sides have suffered huge losses in what has been the worst military war in Europe since WWII.
Throughout his campaign, Trump made it clear that he would have prevented the outbreak of war in 2022 if he had been president. He also promised to put an end to the conflict if re-elected.
During their phone conversation on Wednesday, Trump informed reporters that he and Putin will be meeting soon to discuss a settlement to the conflict in Ukraine. It was later that Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, that he, too, would be a part of the negotiations.
Despite claims by certain authorities that European nations will stay out of the discussions, Rubio stated on Sunday that if the leaders get to the stage of “real negotiations,” then both Europe and Ukraine will be participating.
“Ultimately, it will reach a point when you are – if it’s real negotiations, and we’re not there yet – but if that were to happen, Ukraine will have to be involved, because they’re the one that were invaded, and the Europeans will have to be involved because they have sanctions on Putin and Russia as well, and they’ve contributed to this effort.”
According to Rubio, “we have a long way to go.” He also stressed that the phone conversation between Trump and Putin was only a first step towards beginning negotiations to terminate the conflict.
“We’re just not there yet,” he stated. “We really aren’t, but hopefully we will be, because we’d all like to see this war end.”