Rubio says US will act swiftly with sanctions if Russia stalls peace process
Photo: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (Getty Images)
The United States Congress has already begun working on a bill to impose sanctions on Russia. Moscow must decide whether it is ready to end a full-scale war, says US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a press conference after a meeting of NATO ministers.
The United States is not interested in endless negotiations to end the war and does not plan to continue them permanently, as it has “some time” to wait.
“This is our timeline, and at some point, it'll be clear whether you want peace or you don't want peace. And that time is coming, it's pretty short. At the same time as we now have seen members of Congress have begun to file bills to increase sanctions. So, there is going to be growing pressure from Capitol Hill,” he said.
The US Secretary of State added that Washington will send a message to Moscow and hopes that Russia will be ready for peace.
“We're going to have talks as long as talks are about something. It can't be talks about talks. I think initially it was important to talk, because we hadn't talked to them (Russians - ed.) in a long time, but now we've reached a stage where we need to make progress. And if we're not making progress towards peace, then we have a set of factors that we have to take into account,” he said.
US involvement in peace talks
Today, the White House is in contact with the Ukrainian and Russian sides to help both countries end the full-scale war. In recent months, a number of separate meetings of the US delegation with representatives of Ukraine and Russia have taken place in Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.
Washington has also suspended military aid and intelligence sharing for Kyiv to exert pressure. Meanwhile, only threats have been made against Russia so far.
