Peace agreement on Ukraine may include several stages starting with a ceasefire, Secretary Rubio says

According to him, US President Donald Trump wants to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. “He’s not looking for just like a pause. He’s looking for it to end and it’s going to be hard and it’s going to have to move in stages,” he said.

Rubio suggested that it would start with a ceasefire. “That’s not been agreed to, not even negotiated, but I’m just saying that – and then opening things like aid corridors and ensuring that both sides aren’t targeting energy infrastructure,” he said.

Rubio believes that a peace agreement will not be concluded without Donald Trump, as the US president is the only one in the world who can organize something like that. “But it has to be a global effort. It’s not just us, it’s – not just in Europe or NATO. I mean, countries around the world are going to have to participate,” he added.

The Secretary of State said that Europe will have to provide strong security guarantees for Ukraine. “That’s going to have to be the Europeans who have to be willing to step up and do that and – but there’s a lot of sensitive issues to talk about: territorial claims, arms control and things of that nature, language and cultural matters, all that is going to have to be worked through,” he said.

Rubio notes that the United States is interested in Ukraine's long-term independence. "And that should be anchored in an ongoing economic interest, whether it’s the ability to – hopefully we’ll have some news here soon on that – the ability to partner with Ukraine, a joint venture or something like that, for their mineral rights, all the natural resources they have, and some of that money will go back to pay back the US taxpayer for the billions of dollars that’s been spent there and part of it is going to be reinvested back into Ukraine to rebuild all the destruction that’s happened there – their infrastructure and things like that,” Rubio said.

Meeting in Munich

The US Secretary of State said he would meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Munich. The meeting will also be attended by US Vice President JD Vance.

"And at some point the – we’ll have to engage with Russian counterparts. We haven’t talked to the Russians in almost two and a half years, so I think the President’s call yesterday with Vladimir Putin was the first presidential call with Vladimir Putin in two and a half years, so we’ll have some work to do in terms of just rebuilding the lines of communication,” he said.

The Russians have to identify people who will participate on their side. “And obviously we’re going to be talking to Ukraine and we’re going to be talking to all of our allies and partners in Europe and around the world regarding this as well. They’re going to be involved in all of this,” Rubio added.

According to him, “yesterday was really about confirming that both Putin and Zelenskyy want the war to end and now it’s about the work of trying to figure out how we get there..”

Rubio spoke about Trump's conversation with Zelenskyy. “He talked to him close to 45 minutes. And by the way, like – people saying look how much shorter it was. The difference is with Putin you got to have these translators and it just takes forever back and forth. With Zelenskyy, he speaks fluent English, and they’re able to talk and communicate more directly and it moves a lot faster,” he added.

Peace talks

The first meeting between representatives of the United States, Ukraine, and Russia is scheduled for February 14 at the Munich Security Conference.

Besides, Trump said that representatives of the United States, Ukraine, and Russia will meet in Saudi Arabia next week.

US Vice President JD Vance said that a peace agreement would be concluded, which would shock many people.