April 16 (UPI) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Ambassador Steve Witkoff are in France to talk to European leaders about ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.
They will be in Paris from Wednesday through Friday “to advance President Trump’s goal to end the Russia-Ukraine war and stop the bloodshed,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
She said Rubio also will “discuss ways to advance shared interests in the region.”
Politico Europe reported Witkoff will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron and Rubio with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.
On Friday, Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for almost five hours in St. Petersburg about ending the war with Ukraine.
Witkoff told Fox News on Monday: “This peace deal is about these so-called five territories. But there’s so much more to it. I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very important for the world at large.”
Those territories appear to be Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, and the partially occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts.
If there is a truce, the French president wants Ukraine to receive security guarantees, including the deployment of a so-called reassurance force in Ukraine.
The force is backed by a “coalition of the willing” involving some 30 countries, six of which voiced readiness to commit their troops.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he doesn’t back that idea.
“These are red lines for us – recognizing any temporarily occupied territories as anything other than Ukrainian is unacceptable,” Zelensky said during a news conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Odesa. “Once again, the representatives involved are discussing issues beyond their authority.”
A source told Politico that Iran and trade relations in the wake of Trump’s tariff threats will be discussed.
Trump has imposed a 10% tariff on most trading partners but paused for 90 days a reciprocal one of 20% on the worst offenders, including the 27 European Union nations.
Next, Rubio intends to travel to Africa.
Also Wednesday, Rubio announced the closure of the State Department’s office that deals with countering foreign disinformation.
“It is the responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech,” he said in a statement. “That is why today I am announcing the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC).”
Under the previous administration, this office “cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving. This is antithetical to the very principles we should be upholding and inconceivable it was taking place in America.”
Funding for the center was stripped out of the final government funding deal signed into law by President Joe Biden in December,
Last year Repiublicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said conservative voices were being silenced to clear up disinformation and misinformation online. Elon Musk, who now heads up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, said the office in 2023 was “the worst offender in U.S. government censorship.”
Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the office plays a critical role in combating Russian and Chinese disinformation.