By Daphne Psaledakis and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that now is the time for concrete proposals from Moscow and Kyiv to end the war in Ukraine and warned that the U.S. will step back as a mediator if there is no progress, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
“We are now at a time where concrete proposals need to be delivered by the two parties on how to end this conflict,” Bruce said, citing a statement from Rubio.
“How we proceed from here is a decision that belongs now to the President. If there is not progress, we will step back as mediators in this process,” Bruce added, referring to President Donald Trump, who has sought to secure a deal to end the conflict in Ukraine.
Bruce told reporters at a news briefing that the U.S. was seeking a “complete, durable ceasefire and an end to the conflict” not a “three-day moment so you can celebrate something else.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared a three-day ceasefire in May in the war with Ukraine to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War Two, in a move that appeared aimed at signaling that Russia is still interested in peace.
Ukraine has questioned why Moscow would not agree to its call for a ceasefire lasting at least 30 days and starting immediately.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have sought to show Trump they are making progress towards his goal of a rapid peace deal after the U.S. threatened to abandon its peace push. The Trump administration has grown impatient with stuttering efforts toward peace.
Since taking office in January, Trump has upended U.S. policy toward the war, pressing Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire while easing pressure on Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022.
Ukrainian and European officials pushed back last week against some U.S. proposals on how to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, making counterproposals on issues from territory to sanctions, according to the full texts of the proposals seen by Reuters.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Kanishka Singh and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell)
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