Final peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia must take sanctions into accoun - Rubio

"We’re going to – we’re trying to achieve peace. We’re committed to trying to achieve peace as long as it takes. That doesn’t mean that I can guarantee you that there’s going to be an agreement in a week or a month. I just can’t put a timeframe on it because it doesn’t depend on us. It depends on the Russians and it depends on the Ukrainians. It also depends on our partners in Europe, who have sanctions that will have to be taken into account, I believe, as part of any final deal," Rubio said.

According to him, readiness to sign a peace agreement will be known "when the time comes to sign," if "there is resistance from one side or the other," but "we are not at that stage yet."

The US Secretary of State believes that at this stage, "more progress needs to be made at the technical level."

"As I said, when they arrive back from Saudi Arabia, I want to sit and talk to our team that was on the ground and get a better sense of how those negotiations went, because a lot of it isn’t just what was written and what was said over 12 hours. And by the way, we met with the Ukrainians twice as well, so we want to get that perspective, which we met with them on Sunday and again on Tuesday, and the Russians on Monday. So I need to hear from them directly a little bit more about how it went, and then we’ll present that. We’ll meet with the team and we’ll present that to the President, and then decide on a path of what the next steps are," Rubio noted.

Ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia

Recently, US President Donald Trump stated that the United States is observing significant progress in resolving Russia's war against Ukraine, which was achieved during negotiations in Saudi Arabia.

This statement came following a series of meetings in Riyadh between the delegations of Ukraine and the US, as well as Russia and the US. The parties held separate technical negotiations on the possibility of a ceasefire.

After the talks, it became known that Ukraine had agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea and an energy truce with Russia.

Moscow stated that the Russian side had agreed only to the idea of an energy truce. Regarding the maritime ceasefire, the aggressor country demanded that the West first lift some of the sanctions against it.

Meanwhile, Trump noted that the US is considering Russia’s conditions for a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine in the Black Sea, which include a partial lifting of sanctions.

Earlier, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that Trump was prepared to maximize economic sanctions against Russia to force it into peace negotiations.