WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Tuesday that the United States would end mediation unless Russia and Ukraine put forward \u201cconcrete proposals,\u201d as US patience wanes on an early priority for Donald Trump.
\nThe US president had vowed to end the war in his first 24 hours back in the White House but, as Trump celebrates 100 days in office, Rubio has suggested the administration could soon turn attention to other issues.
\n\u201cWe are now at a time where concrete proposals need to be delivered by the two parties on how to end this conflict,\u201d State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters, in what she said was a message from Rubio.
\n\u201cIf there is not progress, we will step back as mediators in this process.\u201d
\nShe said it would ultimately be up to Trump to decide whether to move ahead on diplomacy.
\nRussian President Vladimir Putin recently proposed a three-day ceasefire around Moscow\u2019s commemorations next week for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
\nBut Putin has rebuffed a Ukrainian-backed US call for a 30-day ceasefire.
\nThe United States wants \u201cnot a three-day moment so you can celebrate something else \u2014 a complete, durable ceasefire and an end to the conflict,\u201d Bruce said.
\nIt remains unclear if Rubio is actually ready to turn the page or is seeking to pressure the two countries \u2014 especially Russia, which believes it has an upper hand on the battlefield and in diplomacy since Trump\u2019s outreach.
\nUS diplomat James Kelley, addressing a UN Security Council session, said both sides would benefit from working off the \u201cframework proposal\u201d outlined by Washington.
\nCondemning Russian strikes on Ukraine, he said: \u201cRight now, Russia has a great opportunity to achieve a durable peace.\u201d
\nTrump, criticizing his predecessor Joe Biden\u2019s support for Ukraine, reached out to Putin after taking office, easing him from the international isolation he has been in since he ordered the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
\nPutin again last week met with Trump\u2019s business friend Steve Witkoff, who has taken on the role of a globe-trotting envoy.
\nTrump in turn berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a February 28 White House meeting, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance accusing the wartime leader of ingratitude for US weapons.
\nUkraine quickly tried to make amends by backing US diplomatic efforts and pursuing a deal in which the United States would control much of the country\u2019s mineral wealth.
\nBut Zelensky has held firm against one part of the US framework \u2014 formal international recognition of Russia\u2019s 2014 takeover of Crimea.
\nTrump has insisted that Ukraine has lost Crimea and Zelensky should give it up.
\nSpeaking by videoconference to an event in Poland on Tuesday, Zelensky said: \u201cWe all want this war to end in a fair way \u2014 with no rewards for Putin, especially no land.\u201d
\nUS Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Tuesday that recognizing \u201cRussia\u2019s illegal annexation of Crimea would invite additional aggression from Moscow and Beijing.\u201d
\n\u201cI have endeavored to give President Trump the space to negotiate a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, which is a goal we both share,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cHowever, President Trump and his team have fatally mismanaged these negotiations \u2014 offering concession after concession to Russia, throwing away our leverage and fracturing the united front with our allies that is critical to ending this war,\u201d she said.
\nUkraine on Tuesday ordered the evacuation of seven villages in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region which used to be remote from the frontlines but are now under threat as Russian forces close in.
\nRussia has been trying to break into the region from the neighboring Donetsk but has not succeeded, even after more than three years of grinding battles.
\nLast week a ballistic missile ripped into a residential area of Kyiv in one of the deadliest attacks on the capital since the invasion.
\nTrump, who has boasted of his rapport with Putin, wrote, \u201cVladimir, STOP,\u201d on social media after the attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Tuesday that the United States would end mediation unless Russia and Ukraine put forward \u201cconcrete proposals,\u201d as US patience wanes on an early priority for Donald Trump. The US president had vowed to end the war in his first 24 hours back in the White House but, as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80372,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80365\/revisions\/80372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}