“We’re testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace,” Marco Rubio told journalists in Brussels after talks with NATO allies.
“Their actions – not their words, their actions – will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.”
He added: “The Russians and [Vladimir] Putin will have to make a decision about whether they’re serious about peace or not. If it’s a delay tactic, [Trump]’s not interested in that. We will know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not.”
Rubio also appeared to strike a more sympathetic tone towards Kyiv, noting that the Ukrainians “have shown a willingness to enter, for example, into a complete ceasefire”.
US officials appear to be growing increasingly impatient with the lack of progress in the ongoing peace negotiations. While Trump continues to publicly suggest that Putin wants to end the war, there is growing recognition within the US administration that the Kremlin is unlikely to back down from its maximalist demands before it commits to peace conditions that would effectively dismantle Ukraine as an independent, functioning state and pull it firmly into Russia’s sphere of influence.
On Friday a Russian missile attack killed at least 18 people, including nine children, in a residential area of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, local officials announced.
The attack on the hometown of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, damaged residential blocks and sparked fires, Serhiy Lysak, the region’s governor, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
At least 50 people were wounded, the emergency services said, adding that the figure was growing.
Zelensky responded by calling on the west to exert greater pressure on Moscow. “The whole world sees it,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Each missile, every attack drone proves that Russia seeks only war.”
Russia claimed it had targeted a gathering of servicemen but Ukraine accused Moscow of “again spreading false information”.
“The missile struck a residential area with a playground,” the military’s general staff said in a statement on Telegram.
“Through this latest violation of the norms of international human rights, the insidious enemy shows that it is in no way seeking peace but rather intends to continue its invasion and war to destroy Ukraine and all Ukrainians,” it added.
Russia has previously rejected a US proposal for a full and immediate 30-day ceasefire, to which Ukraine had agreed. Meanwhile, neither side appears to be adhering to an earlier agreement to temporarily halt strikes on energy infrastructure during that period.
European allies have been urging Washington to take a tougher stance on Moscow and push for a serious commitment to a ceasefire, with some suggesting that a clear deadline should be set.
Moscow “owes an answer to the United States”, which had “worked very hard to come up with a mediation effort and a ceasefire proposal”, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said in Brussels, standing alongside the British foreign minister, David Lammy.
“[Putin] could accept a ceasefire now, he continues to bombard Ukraine, its civilian population, its energy supplies,” Lammy stated, adding, “We see you, Vladimir Putin, we know what you are doing.”
There was similar rhetoric among other European allies of Ukraine, with the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, dismissing Putin’s talk of negotiations as “nothing but empty promises”. She accused the Russian leader of “playing for time by raising ever-new demands”.
The Kremlin this week sent an envoy to Washington, marking the first time since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion that a senior Russian official had travelled to the US for talks with American counterparts.
Kirill Dmitriev met Steve Witkoff, Trump’s senior adviser on Russia negotiations, as well as Rubio at the White House on Wednesday. Dmitriev described the meetings as evidence of a “positive dynamic” between the two countries and claimed progress had been made towards peace in Ukraine.
Rubio, the US’s top diplomat, took a more cautious stance, saying he hoped Dmitriev would deliver a clear message to Moscow.
“He’ll take some messages back, and the message is the United States needs to know whether you’re serious or not about peace,” he stated.
Trump has previously suggested he would impose a 25% or even 50% tariff on countries buying Russian oil if he concluded that Putin was obstructing peace talks.
