The U.S. will decide in the next few days whether it will abandon its efforts to broker a ceasefire agreement over the war in Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday.
Why It Matters
Ahead of his reelection in November, U.S. President Donald Trump championed a commitment to ending Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II in just 24 hours.
Although widely understood to be an unrealistic window, the pledge signaled the incoming administration would make a ceasefire deal for the war one of its top priorities.
But months later, the White House has conceded that Trump had been “continually frustrated” with negotiations, with the president at various points putting the blame on Kyiv and Moscow for tripping up talks.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Paris on Thursday, April 17, 2025. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Paris on Thursday, April 17, 2025. Julien de Rosa, Pool via AP
What To Know
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide and determine whether this is even possible or not, which is why we’re engaging both sides,” Rubio told the media before departing from Le Bourget airport in Paris on Friday.
The Secretary of State said he had traveled to the French capital on Thursday to discuss “more specific outlines” on what would be needed to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Senior Ukrainian officials met with a U.S. delegation in Paris, plus members of the “coalition of the willing” countries led by the U.K. and France, tasked with providing security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire deal.
“We need to determine very quickly now—and I’m talking about a matter of days—whether or not this is doable” in the coming weeks, Rubio said.
“If it can, we’re prepared to do whatever we can to facilitate that and make sure that it happens, that it ends in a durable and just way,” Rubio said.
“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 added.
Trump has steered the White House toward a rapprochement with the Kremlin, monitored with apprehension by most of the U.S.’ allies and many domestic lawmakers.
The president on Monday accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of starting the war more than three years ago, telling reporters: “You don’t start a war with someone 20 times your size and then hope people give you some missiles.”
Trump has also accused Zelensky of being a “dictator,” while skirting around giving Russian President Vladimir Putin the same label. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said the Ukrainian delegation had “very meaningful” conversations with officials gathered in Paris.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister, Rustem Umerov, said he had held bilateral talks with Rubio alongside Yermak and Kyiv’s Foreign Minister, Andriy Sybiha, as well as Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg.
Witkoff, who usually focuses on the Middle East, has visited Russia three times, including traveling to St. Petersburg earlier this month for an almost five-hour-long meeting with Putin and senior Kremlin aides. Kellogg, the Russia and Ukraine envoy, has worked with Ukrainian teams.
Witkoff told Fox News on Monday he had “compelling” discussions with the Kremlin, Russia presented Putin’s view for a “permanent” peace beyond an immediate ceasefire deal, Witkoff said. He did not elaborate further.
Russia has laid out extensive conditions for its consent to a ceasefire in Ukraine, many of which have been flatly ruled out by Kyiv, including the dismantling of its military, no path toward NATO and recognition of Russia’s grip on seized territory.
Moscow currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it felt “very, very positively the constructive and meaningful contacts that took place” between Witkoff and senior Russian officials.
“This peace deal is about these so-called five territories, but there’s so much more to it,” Witkoff said.
Witkoff appears to be referencing Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized from Kyiv in 2014, and four Russian-annexed regions of mainland Ukraine. The Kremlin said in fall 2022 that it was annexing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions collectively known as the Donbas, as well as the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine.
This was not internationally recognized, and Russia does not fully control these regions, also known as oblasts. Trump officials have increasingly signaled a peace agreement could involve continued Moscow retaining control of these chunks of Ukraine.
The Trump administration severed Ukraine’s access to U.S.-derived intelligence and paused all American military aid to Kyiv in March in an apparent bid to push Ukraine toward the negotiating table. The U.S. president has also threatened Russia with fresh sanctions, but said he was reluctant to enact this.
“If there is no strong enough pressure on Russia, they will keep doing what they are used to—they will keep waging war,” Zelensky said in his evening address on Monday.
Separately on Friday, Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in a statement late Thursday that Kyiv and Washington had “taken a step” toward inking a rare earth minerals deal.
The announcement marks the first advancement toward a full agreement that was thrown into jeopardy by rounds of tense talks and Zelensky’s disastrous White House visit in February.
The Trump administration has positioned the deal as compensation for tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military aid the U.S. has sent to Ukraine after Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022. Kyiv has pushed back against this characterization.
What People Are Saying
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Friday: “We’re not going to continue to fly all over the world and do meeting after meeting after meeting if no progress is being made.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said Kyiv had reaffirmed that it “seeks to end the war as soon as possible and continues to support the initiative of a total ceasefire—this is the proposal we agreed to by the United States on March 11 in Jeddah [Saudi Arabia].”
What Happens Next
Another round of ceasefire talks will take place in London next week.
