Donald Trump is ready to walk away from trying to negotiate a Russia-Ukraine peace deal within days unless progress is made, a top US official has warned.
If the president doesn’t see signs that an agreement is on the horizon he will call it a day because he has ‘other priorities’ to focus on, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday.
‘We’re not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks.
‘If it is we’re in. If it’s not, then we have other priorities to focus on as well,’ Rubio said in Paris, after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders.
Rubio said Trump was still interested in a deal but was willing to move on if there were no immediate signs of progress.
‘If it’s not possible, if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the president’s probably at a point where he’s going to say, ‘well, we’re done’, he said.
‘The United States has been helping Ukraine over the last three years, and we want it to end, but it’s not our war,’ Rubio added.
Rubio was in the French capital on Thursday for talks with UK, EU and Ukrainian delegations and a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Meanwhile the US and Ukraine signed a memorandum as a first step towards the stalled minerals deal, according to Ukraine’s economy minister.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the conference underscored the ‘shared commitment to global security’.
Trump promised during his election campaign to end the war within his first 24 hours in the White House.
He moderated that claim on taking office, suggesting a deal by April or May, as obstacles mounted.
Rubio’s comments underline the mounting frustrations over a lack of progress in pushes to settle a growing list of geopolitical challenges.
It comes after Trump claimed the war in Ukraine would not have happened ‘if Zelensky was competent’, as he vowed to ‘stop the killing’.
Trump on Monday blamed the Ukrainian president, Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his predecessor Joe Biden for the war, before implying that Putin would have never invaded if he had been in power in the US.
‘If Biden were competent, and if Zelensky were competent, and I don’t know that he is… that war should never have been allowed to happen,’ he told reporters at the White House on Monday.
‘I went four years and Putin wouldn’t even bring it up and as soon as the election was rigged and I wasn’t here, that war started.’
