It is a confusing period for American diplomacy. After yesterday’s meeting in Saudi Arabia, the United States seemed in the corner of Ukraine on Tuesday – and Call Russia to accept a 30-day ceasefire In the war, he started over three years ago. He remained quite clear on Wednesday, however, if Vladimir Putin could accept a temporary cease-fire. His forces currently have momentum on the battlefield But, like Ukraine, Russia would have undergone hundreds of thousands of military victims.
“We are going to say (the Russians) is what is on the table. Ukraine is ready to stop shooting and starting to speak, and now it will be up to them to say yes or no,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the journalist after the dinner meeting. “If they say no, then we will unfortunately know what is the obstacle to peace here … The ball is now in their courtyard.”
Russia Hedges, but notes Battlefield “Dynamics is good” for Putin
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that it needed more details on the proposal and the time to consider it. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow supposed that Rubio, who directed the American delegation during talks with Ukraine on Tuesday, would inform Russian counterparts “about the details of the negotiations in Saudi Arabia,” but that before this information “.
“Contacts are scheduled for the coming days,” said Peskov.
Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine Steve Witkoff is expected to go to Russia for talks later this week. Peskov said these talks could lead to another telephone conversation between Putin and Mr. Trump. He said there were not yet concrete plans for such a conversation, but “if necessary, [it] can be organized very quickly. “”
The Kremlin spokesman, however, suggested that Russia’s negotiation position in all imminent ceasefire talks only became stronger with each passing day. Putin forces have continued a slow but regular lead in recent weeks, Taking ground in RussiaThe western border region of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces organized a shock foray last year.
“The Kremlin closely monitors information from the military in the Kursk region,” said Peskov. “The data show that the Russian forces are successfully progressing, the dynamics are good.”
The Russia’s army said on Wednesday that the forces had taken up five other small villages in Kursk of Ukrainian troops. Russia also sparked a new rocket attack on Ukraine during the night, the state emergency service reporting strikes on the highly bombed hometown of Zelenskyy de Kryvyi Rih. The service said that apartments, administrative buildings, a shop, an educational establishment, buses and other vehicles have been damaged in strikes, and it accused Russia of winning rescuers who had responded. Information on local media said that at least nine people had been injured and that a woman, a passerby, had been killed.
The changing policy of the White House Ukraine
The quarter of the White House after the meeting in Saudi Arabia – clearly putting the burden in Moscow to put an end to the war that Putin launched more than three years ago – was the Second dramatic turn By the Trump administration in less than a month because he directs the American policy on Ukraine. This contrasts strongly with the meeting that Zelenskyy had a few weeks ago in Washington a few weeks ago, when Mr. Trump called the Ukrainian president elected “a dictator,” said that he had “had the cards at the moment” to negotiate the terms of truce, then having publicly reprimanded him in the oval office.
Trump then ordered the suspension of American security assistance and information sharing with Ukraine – which are both crucial for the country which behaves on all chance of holding the advanced forces of Russia remotely.
The break was lifted on Tuesday to the agreement between Washington and kyiv on a frame for a 30-day ceasefire, immediately unlocking a shipment of weapons already promised to Kyiv-around $ 3.8 billion in air defense systems, Himars, artillery and support for F-16 Fighter Jets.
In Poland, an American ally of NATO who shares a long border with western Ukraine and firmly supported Zelenskyy throughout the war, Prime Minister Donald Tusk praised “the important stage towards peace”, as the country’s Ministry of Defense confirmed that the transfer of weapons supported by the United States had resumed through the Polish border.
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who both said a desire to send peace forces to Ukraine as part of a possible truce agreement, both praised the progress of Djeddah, Starmer describing him as “remarkable breakthrough”, while Macron warned that Kyiv would still need to be “
Rubio, addressing journalists on Wednesday, seemed to add new nuances to the position of the White House on the position of Ukraine and its neighbors, claiming that European nations should “be involved” in the realization of a cease-fire and the conduct of current discussions as “deterrent for Ukraine against future aggression”.
Saul Loeb / Pool / AFP / Getty
Trump and other senior American civil servants were for weeks in the importance of security guarantees for Ukraine – and have completely excluded any suggestion of American boots on the ground. They insisted that a new economic agreement between kyiv and Washington was aimed at granting American access to Ukraine reserves Highly sought -after mineral resourceswould bring American investments that would effectively dissuade Russia, without a clear American military commitment.
Rubio said on Wednesday, according to the Reuters news agency, that he would not be responsible for an American mineral agreement from Ukraine as a means of deterrence in Russia.
“There are different ways to build a deterrent on the ground which prevents another war from starting in the future,” said Rubio, stressing that the Trump administration was not about the concept of security guarantees “with all kinds of preconceived concept”.
“The main thing,” he said, “it must be something that gives the impression that Ukraine can dissuade and prevent a future invasion.”
During the first three years of war, the United States government has committed much more than $ 100 billion to support Ukraine, helping to defend a young democracy against the assault of Russia.
This cause has attracted many volunteers from around the world to help train and fight alongside Ukrainian forces, including Americans who came as private, risking their own personal security. CBS News met Americans to train Ukrainian soldiers and to evacuate civilians from front line areas.
Hundreds of American volunteers, including many American veterans, have registered to serve with the Ukrainian army. For some of them, the recent actions and rhetoric of the American administration – in particular the remarks of Mr. Trump who echoed the discussion points of the Kremlin, suggesting that war is kyiv’s fault and that Zelenskyy is an illegitimate leader – have not been well seated.
An American fighting for Ukraine’s survival published a video on social networks after this explosive meeting at the White House, describing it in uncertain terms as “essentially Russian propaganda outside the mouth of an American president”.
“It is shameful,” said the man, who identified himself in the video as “bad guy”, an American volunteer fighting with a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard in the Kharkiv region. “I voted for this man twice. I have always been a fucking supporter of Trump, to the point of losing friends for defending this man and what he said on television. But last night, he crossed a line.”
contributed to this report.
Holly Williams
