TASHKENT: Marco Rubio urged Kyiv and Moscow on Monday to concentrate on stopping the four-year war, as Washington tries to broker peace.
He spoke to reporters in Uzbekistan. A question about a possible meeting of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping drew a cautious reply.
Rubio said talks about such a meeting had taken place. He added that he did not know if anyone had finalised the plan. The president, he said, wants the war to end.
Marco Rubio on Ukraine and intelligence sharing
Rubio also denied that Washington had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine. Kyiv had claimed otherwise.
He urged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to concentrate on bringing the war to an end. In his words, that is the goal for Ukraine and for the United States.
“We see nothing good coming from this war,” Rubio said. He warned of a very real risk that the fighting escalates or spreads to another country.
He gave examples, among them a failed sabotage attack, or drones that electronic warfare knocks off course and sends into a neighbouring state.
Marco Rubio in Central Asia
Marco Rubio arrived in Samarkand late on Sunday for talks with senior officials of the C5 format. The format links the United States with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Last November, Trump hosted the five countries’ leaders at the White House.
Peace efforts amid fresh attacks
Washington has tried to mediate an end to the war. Trump has also struck a deal for Russian diesel imports and lifted some sanctions on Moscow, which he says should keep the Kremlin at the table.
Zelenskyy has criticised those steps. The moves also reflect warmer ties between Washington and Moscow, which now include the diesel deal and the suspended sanctions.
Marco Rubio said the White House sees no gain in a long war. By his account, wider fighting would hurt every country near the border, so Washington wants a quick end.
Meanwhile, fighting goes on. A new Russian air raid on Kyiv overnight killed a woman. The raid hit a metro station too, and a 25-storey apartment block took damage.
In another attack, Russian fire on two buses carrying passengers in Kramatorsk left at least 30 dead and 20 hurt. Officials warned that the toll could rise, since some victims remain unidentified.
On the summit idea, a newspaper report said Putin first floated a trilateral meeting during a call with Trump on October 9. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said all three sides see such a meeting as hypothetically possible, though nobody has a clear picture of the agenda yet.
One senior US official said Trump had given no agreement to the summit so far, though he might welcome it. Neither the White House nor Xi’s office had replied publicly.
The Kremlin has proposed holding the talks next to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, set for November 18 and 19.
For now, Marco Rubio has neither confirmed nor ruled out a summit. However, he has kept the focus on stopping the fighting, and he says the talks continue.
