The US has been seeing condemnation from some actors over its efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, the top US diplomat has said
The Ukraine conflict is “one of the few wars” that some in the international community have been cheering and condemning efforts to bring to an end, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.
The top US diplomat made the remarks on Monday during a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest.
Rubio claimed that the US was the only country that has managed to bring Russia and Ukraine together for negotiations, yet lamented the reaction of certain actors in the international community to the mediating effort of the Trump administration.
“Usually when you’re trying to end wars, the international community applauds you. This is one of the few wars I’ve ever seen where some people in the international community condemn you for trying to help end the war, but that’s what we’re trying to do,” he said without explicitly naming any pro-war actors.
This year, Russia, Ukraine, and the US held two rounds of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, and multiple discussions between the parties in different formats have also taken place. Negotiations are set to take place “again in Geneva later this week,” Rubio stated. The top diplomat claimed that Washington has not been trying to “impose a deal on anybody” but rather “help” both parties to end the “incredibly damaging” conflict.
The two recent rounds of talks were held behind closed doors, with no details shared by either side other than both Moscow and Washington calling the talks “productive” and “constructive.” The latest meeting has yielded an exchange of 314 POWs between Russia and Ukraine. Multiple public statements from senior officials from all the sides, however, have indicated that the positions of the two sides remain far apart on territorial issues.
Moscow has maintained that any sustainable settlement requires Ukraine to withdraw from the areas still under its control in Donbass, which voted to join Russia in 2022. Kiev, however, has repeatedly rejected making any territorial concessions.
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