Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine ‘have to make concessions’ for peace deal | Trump administration

In a combative series of interviews on Sunday, the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that “the two parties will have to make concessions” so that there is a peaceful resolution to the war which broke out when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“You cannot have a peace agreement unless the two parties make dealerships – this is a fact,” the Trump administration’s first diplomat on ABC this week said on Sunday. “This is true in almost all negotiations. Otherwise, it is simply called surrender. And none of the parties will go. So both sides will have to make concessions.”

Rubio said recent talks in Alaska between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump to end the war “made progress in the sense that we have identified potential agreements – but there are still major areas of disagreement”.

“We are still far from afar,” added Rubio. “We are not on the precipice of a peace agreement. We are not at the forefront of one. But I think progress has been made and towards one. ”

He refused to enter specific areas of agreement or disagreement, or to describe what Trump described as “serious consequences” for Russia if his assault towards Ukraine continued.

“In the end, if there is no peace agreement, if there is no end of war, the president was clear – there will be consequences,” said Rubio. “But we try to avoid this. And the way we try to avoid these consequences is with an even better consequence, which is peace, the end of hostilities.”

The American special envoy Steve Witkoff said that Putin had agreed at the top to allow the United States and Europe to offer in Ukraine a security guarantee resembling the collective NATO defense mandate in the context of any peace agreement.

In an interview on CNN, Witkoff said that the United States had won the concession that “the United States could offer type 5 protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO”. He said that the concession was “revolutionary”.

Rubio agreed that no agreement was possible without both parties – including that of the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy – at the table. “You are not going to reach a ceasefire or a peace agreement at a meeting in which only one side is represented,” Rubio told ABC News. “This is why it is important to bring together the two leaders – and that’s the goal here.”

Rubio confirmed that a ceasefire – or, as Trump now prefers, an agreement directly to the Pera – “will be difficult”, despite the openly demanding of the White House.

The war, he said, “continues for three and a half years”.

“You have two very anchored sides, and we will have to continue working and keeping there,” said Rubio.

In addition, on the meeting of the NBC press, Rubio said that a cease-fire was “not outside the table”, although he added: “It was agreed by all the best way to put an end to this conflict is by a complete peace agreement.”

He said the United States had pleaded for a ceasefire, but “unfortunately, the Russians did not agree.

“But the ideal here, what we are targeting here is not a cease-fire,” he said. “What we ultimately target is the end of this.”

Shortly after Rubio told the press that “nobody pushes” Ukraine to abandon the territory, Trump shared a social post of truth from a supporter who said: “Ukraine must be willing to lose a territory with Russia, if not the war will continue, they will continue to lose even more land !!”

Nevertheless, Rubio said that he doubted that a new set of Western sanctions against Russia forced Moscow to accept any agreement.

“The Russian economy was mainly transformed into a full -time economy in wartime,” Rubio told CBS Face The Nation on Sunday – while stressing that Russia would have lost 20,000 soldiers in only the last month.

“This simply tells you the price they are ready to pay,” said Rubio. “Not to say that all this is admirable – I say that it is the reality of the war we faced. It has become attrition, in some respects. It is a meat grinder, and they just have more meat to grind.”

He also denied that Trump, as the criticism claims, had simply given the aggressor in the conflict, Putin, an unjustified place on the world scene.

“Putin is already on the world scene,” said Rubio on ABC News. “The guy is carrying out a large -scale war in Ukraine.

“This does not mean that he is right of war. It does not mean that he is justified by war. You are not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine without facing Putin. It’s just common sense. Thus, people can say what they want.”

During the meeting of the NBC press, the American Senator Democratis Chris Murphy du Connecticut au Constance on Sunday that the “Trump-Putin meeting was a disaster”.

“It was discomfort for the United States,” said Murphy. “It was a failure. Putin has everything he wanted. “

Murphy said Trump had given Putin “this photo” that he wanted and “be absolved of his war crimes in front of the world.

“War criminals are not normally invited to the United States of America,” said Murphy.

Second, he said, Putin had not been forced to give up anything.

“President Trump said he wanted a cease-fire-it seems that the ceasefire was not even seriously discussed,” added Murphy. “And then, thirdly, there is no consequence.

“Trump said,” If I don’t receive a cease-fire, Putin will pay a price. “And then he got out of this meeting saying:” I did not have a cease-fire.

Fiona Hill, Trump assistant assistant during her first term, told CBS: “The optics were much more favorable to Putin than for the United States. It really seemed that Putin established the agenda, the story and in many ways the tone for the whole meeting of the summit. ”

The national security advisor at the presidency of Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, said that the previous administration had concluded – on the basis of contacts – that Russia was not able to negotiate the end of the war.

“We did not want to set up a summit where we were literally deployed the red carpet for Putin in America to bring him and continue the war without any clear and convincing results of the summit,” Sullivan told ABC News.

“I think that our judgment on this subject was correct,” he added, saying that any summit must be “properly ready to produce a result that the American president can articulate in advance and produce in a row”.

“The result that this American president articulated, a cease-fire or consequences-he did not produce,” said Sullivan. “And that’s why I think we are in a difficult situation today.”