Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday acknowledged the Trump administration is far away from reaching any kind of peace deal between Russia and Ukraine after President Trump’s summit on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rubio insisted progress was made at the Alaska summit, which the president declared a “10 out of 10” because of how well he got along with Putin.
At the same time, Rubio in a Sunday morning interview in ABC’s “This Week” didn’t mince words in discussing how much work still needed to be done.
“We made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement, but there remain some big areas of disagreement,” Rubio told ABC’s Martha Raddatz. “So we’re still a long ways off. We are not at the precipice of a peace agreement. We are not at the edge of one. But I do think progress was made.”
Trump is now scheduled to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday at the White House. Zelensky will be accompanied by European leaders in a sign of their support for Ukraine.
Trump’s talk of land being swapped between Ukraine and Russia has raised alarms in European capitals, where his words have been seen as a sign that Ukraine might need to give up territory to Russia to reach a peace deal.
Rubio brushed off the fact that Trump has not announced tougher actions against Russia after the summit, telling Raddatz that wasn’t the aim of the meeting after she noted that Trump had suggested tougher penalties for Moscow could be coming without progress.
Rubio, one of two U.S. officials who were in attendance for the Trump-Putin meeting, also said it would not be possible to reach a deal between Russia and Ukraine without Zelensky being at the table.
The secretary of State suggested there are many people on the outside who do not know about the talks, suggesting Putin could have signaled some concessions to Trump.
“I think we made some real progress. You talked about not knowing what was discussed. These peace deals, these peace agreements and negotiations, they don’t work when they’re conducted in the media, either through leaks or through lies,” he said.
“And usually, they’re both the same thing, lying leaks. OK? They don’t work if you do it that way.”
Responding in part to criticism that Trump was too friendly toward Putin at the summit and afterward, Rubio also said peace would not be realized through insults.
Peace deals don’t work out, Rubio said, “if you go out and say aggressive and abrasive things about one side or the other, because then they just walk away.”
Asked specifically if Putin had offered any concessions, Rubio said he would not name any publicly but suggested there would need to be a give and take on both sides. He also made it clear that Trump had asked Putin for concessions.
“So, of course, concessions were asked. But what utility would there be of me going on a program and tell you, we’ve wagged our finger at Putin and told him, you must do this and you must do that. It’s only going to make — it’s only going to make it harder and less likely that they’re going to agree to these things,” he said.
“So, these negotiations, as much as everyone would love it to be a live, pay-per-view event, these discussions only work best when they are conducted privately in serious negotiation in which people who have to go back and respond to constituencies, because even totalitarian governments have constituencies they have to respond to, people have to go back and defend these agreements that they make.”
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