Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, just days after President Donald Trump expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not engaging in peace talks with Ukraine, according to a senior State Department official.
The meeting is set to take place in Malaysia on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.
Trump reiterated multiple times this week that Ukraine needed defensive weapons. His comments came after a halt in weapons flow to Ukraine, directed by the Pentagon, set off confusion about continued US military support for Ukraine.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not inform the White House before he gave the green light to pause shipments of weapons to Ukraine last week and the move also caught Rubio off guard, CNN reported. Shortly after the halt Trump said at least some of the weapons shipments would continue.
Following those comments Russia launched its largest drone assault to date on Ukraine with more than 700 drones, according to Ukraine’s Air Force.
It will be the second time that Rubio meets with his Russian counterpart, the first being in Saudi Arabia earlier this year. The two have talked on the phone multiple times in recent months as the US pushed for a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia that never came to fruition.
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