April 18 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is “not our war” and that if it’s not possible to reach a peace deal within days “we’re done.”
Rubio said the United States needs to determine very quickly — in a matter of days — whether or not ending the war “is doable” over the next few weeks.
“If it’s not possible — if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen,” Rubio said, ” Then I think the president’s probably at a point where he’s going to say, well, we’re done.”
“I think it’s important to remind everybody that the Ukraine war is a terrible thing, but it’s not our war. We didn’t start it. The United States has been helping Ukraine for over the last three years, and we want it to end. But it’s not our war.”
Rubio did not spell out whether his comments mean the United States will also be done with supporting Ukraine as it defends against the Russian invasion and occupation.
“We’ve spent three years, billions of dollars supporting the Ukrainian side, and — but now we’ve reached the point where we have other things we have to focus on,” Rubio said. “We’re prepared to be engaged in this as long as it takes, but not indefinitely, not without progress. If this is not possible, we’re going to need to move on.”
U.S. and Ukrainian officials, including Rubio, met Thursday in Paris for talks on the war as Russia continued to attack Ukraine.
Rubio told reporters Friday that “we had positive meetings yesterday.”
He said he thought the French, the British and Germans were “very constructive, very helpful.”
He said there will hopefully be another meeting next week “where we’ll have some more definitive answers about how close we are to actually making progress.”
Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenkor said on X Thursday that progress was made toward a minerals deal with the United States.
“We are happy to announce the signing, with our American partners, of a Memorandum of Intent, which paves the way for an Economic Partnership Agreement and the establishment of the Investment Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine,” she said.
She said there has been significant progress on details of the deal indicating the final deal “will be very beneficial to both countries.”
The two countries intend to finalize the deal as soon as April 26.
The Chair of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada parliament said on X that Trump administration special envoy Steve Witkoff “may be inadvertently trying to push pro-Russian narratives” during the peace talks.
The Trump administration has made overtures to Russia while criticizing Ukraine in the peace talk process.
Responding to reporter questions, Rubio said if progress toward peace is being made the United States is prepared to engage as long as it takes but won’t be involved indefinitely without progress.
He said he spoke with Russian foreign minister Lavrov and told him that the United States proposed an outline for peace to Ukraine but didn’t specify to Lavrov what the outline details were.