US officials renew calls for Ukraine, Russia to seek peace
WASHINGTON: Two top US officials have renewed calls on Russia and Ukraine to reach a peace deal, with one saying there was no clear end in sight to the conflict in Ukraine and the other warning that President Donald Trump needed a breakthrough "very soon". The comments, made separately by Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, underscored the impatience in Trump's administration over the intractability of the war, now in its fourth year. Trump, who had pledged to strike a peace deal on his first day back in the White House before his advisers rowed back, has appeared to side with Russia but made comments more favourable to Ukraine in the run-up to a minerals deal being struck.
Vance and Rubio said peace was up to both sides. "It's going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict," Vance said in an interview on Fox News' "Special Report with Bret Baier" show. "It's not going anywhere, Bret. It's not going to end any time soon," Vance added. He said that it was difficult to be confident that an end to the war was in sight because the Russians and Ukrainians "have to take the final step." "For the Ukrainians, yes, of course they are angry that they were invaded, but are we going to continue to lose thousands and thousands of soldiers over a few miles of territory this or that way?"
Rubio said separately on Thursday that Trump would have to decide how much time to devote to resolving the war if there was not a significant breakthrough in negotiations very soon. "I think we know where Ukraine is, and we know where Russia is right now ... They're closer, but they're still far apart," he added during an interview on Fox News' Hannity programme. Rubio has been named as an interim replacement for Mike Waltz, who was ousted as US national security adviser on Thursday in the first major shakeup of Trump's inner circle since he took office in January. It remains to be seen how his ouster could affect Ukraine's turbulent relationship with the Trump administration. Waltz had been one of the main interlocutors with top Ukrainian officials, and, according to a foreign diplomat in Washington, US partners in Europe and Asia saw him as supportive of traditional alliances such as Nato and tempering more antagonistic views toward them from some other Trump aides.
Kyiv and Washington signed a deal this week giving the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals, in a move that a top US official said would strengthen Trump's negotiating position with Russia. The agreement will show the "Russian leadership that there is no daylight between the Ukrainian people and the American people, between our goals," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business Network in an interview.
The Kremlin has been silent so far on Wednesday's accord, although former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said it meant Trump had "broken the Kyiv regime" because Ukraine would have to pay for US military aid with mineral resources. The Ukrainian parliament must still approve the pact, which will give the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals deals and fund investment in Ukraine's reconstruction. Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who signed the accord, told reporters in an online briefing that would happen in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, Russia said on Friday its forces were continuing to create a "security strip" in border areas of Ukraine's Sumy region after driving Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region, just across the border in western Russia. "Units of the North group of forces have completed the rout of Ukrainian Armed Forces formations in the Kursk region," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement. "The creation of a 'security strip' in the border areas of Ukraine's Sumy region continues." Two Majors, a Russian war blogger with over 1.2 million subscribers, said Russia was developing an offensive from Zhuravka to Bilovody, two villages just over the border in Sumy. — Reuters
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