Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is willing to facilitate the end of a “senseless war” between Russia and Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters at the Philippine International Convention Center, Rubio said, “The United States, the President’s been clear that we want – if we can, we are prepared to play a constructive role in bringing about an end to a senseless war. And we’re ready to do that, and we of course expressed that, and we’ve expressed it in other meetings. So we talked about other things as well.”
Rubio’s comments come as he met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during the ASEAN Ministerial.
He went on to call the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine “bloody.”
“I think it’s a bloody war. I think it’s a very bloody war,” he said, adding, “People suffering every day, the – I think it’s the only conflict – I’ve been told it’s the only conflict that anyone in the military can recall where the killed-in-action rate is higher than the casualty rate. That’s how bloody it is. The Russians, I believe, are losing upwards of five to six thousand soldiers a week. That’s a staggering number.”
Rubio reiterated that the United States wants a “peace deal; we want the war to end.”
“We’re prepared to play whatever positive role we can to end the war. And that – in order to end this war will require something that both Russia and Ukraine can agree to,” he explained. “That’s not going to happen at a press conference. That’s not going to happen at one meeting here in the Philippines. That’s going to require a lot of work.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “Lavrov briefed his American counterpart on the real state of affairs along the line of contact and emphasized the unacceptability of further armament of the Kyiv regime.” It added that Russia is prepared for a “political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict.”
