Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that any peace deal to end the war in Ukraine must ensure that they will “never have another war again” — as top negotiators from Washington and Kyiv met in Miami. Realistic.
Rubio called the meeting in Miami “quite productive,” but stressed that they “still have work to do” to get a deal across the finish line to end the bloody war in Ukraine. “Today was again a very productive and useful session where I think additional progress was made,” Rubio told reporters after their deliberations. “There’s another party involved here that will have to be a part of the equation. And that will continue later this week when Mr. Witkov travels to Moscow.”
The meeting came before President Trump’s top envoys jet over to Moscow to try to sell the latest deal to Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin. Their goal is to close the gap on what territory Ukraine could give up and what security guarantees Kyiv will receive in exchange — two critical issues that were left unresolved during talks in Geneva one week earlier. “This is not just about ending a war this is about ending a war in a way that creates a mechanism and a way forward that will allow them to be independent and sovereign and never have another war again,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the start of the meeting.
His declaration came following criticism that a 28-point US-backed peace plan heavily favored Moscow and would have left Ukraine vulnerable to future Russian attacks. A subsequent 19-point proposal that Ukraine agreed to appeared likely to be rejected by the Kremlin. The meeting comes days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff and top negotiator, Andriy Yermak, resigned following a raid on his home by anti-corruption forces in Ukraine. Yermak, who was expected to lead the negotiations, is in the crosshairs of an investigation into a scheme in which contractors of Ukraine’s largest electricity producer, Energoatom, were allegedly forced to make 10 to 15% kickbacks or get blacklisted.