U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Washington cannot sidestep talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin if it wants to end the war in Ukraine.
"Putin is already on the world stage," Rubio said to ABC News on Sunday, referring to Russia's massive nuclear capability. "He's got the largest tactical nuclear arsenal in the world, and the second largest strategic nuclear arsenal in the world. He's already on the world stage."
Rubio shot down suggestions that talks with Putin would only increase his standing. "When people say that, 'oh, it puts him up,' Well, all we do is constantly talk about Putin. All the media has done is constantly talk about Putin for the last four or five years," he told Russian news agency Tass.
Per Rubio, any peace with the war in Ukraine necessarily involves direct negotiations with Moscow's leader. "It means you're not going to have a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, you're not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin. That's just common sense. I shouldn't even have to say it. So, people can say whatever they want," he said.
His remarks followed days after a summit between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump on August 15 at an Alaskan military base. The summit took approximately three hours, starting with a closed-door discussion inside Trump's limousine as he made his way to the main event, followed by a closed-format "three-on-three" session.
On the Russian side, presidential aide Yury Ushakov and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made up the delegation, and joining Trump were Secretary of State Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
After negotiations, Putin informed journalists that the fighting in Ukraine had taken center stage on the agenda. He called for a restart of Russian-American relations and invited Trump to come to Moscow. Trump, in turn, accepted that some progress had been made but acknowledged that negotiations had failed to yield a definitive deal.
Spokesperson for the administration once again, on Sunday, Rubio reiterated that there had to be compromise on both sides from Moscow and Kyiv. "You can't have a peace agreement unless both sides give and receive. You can't have a peace agreement unless both sides compromise," he explained to ABC News. "Otherwise, it's just referred to as surrender, and neither side will surrender, so both sides are going to have to compromise."
He also mentioned that Washington had been pushing Putin to consider compromises. Meanwhile, Rubio clarified that while sanctions are an effective tool, the Trump administration is wary of imposing additional measures. "Once it imposes additional sanctions to those already in force, the negotiations will stop," he said.
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