Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the timing of a potential face-to-face meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin regarding a ceasefire deal in Ukraine in an interview that aired Sunday.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday while returning to Washington, D.C., from Abu Dhabi that no peace in Ukraine would be reached until he met with Putin in person. The president added in a Truth Social post on Saturday that he planned to speak with Putin on the phone on Monday, followed by a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some NATO leaders.
Meanwhile, Rubio — who attended Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass in Rome on Sunday — said the Vatican has offered to host a direct meeting between Ukraine, Russia and possibly other parties.
‘Obviously, the Vatican has made a very generous offer to host anything — by the way, not just a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, but any meeting, including at a technical level, you know — any meetings that need to be hosted, they’ve expressed a willingness to do so. So it’s a very generous offer that may be taken up on,’ Rubio told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ in an interview that was recorded on Saturday. ‘I mean, it would be a site that all parties would feel comfortable. So hopefully we’ll get to that stage where talks are happening on a regular basis, and that the Vatican will have the opportunity to be one of the options.’
Rubio had a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on Saturday after Putin was a no-show to a face-to-face meeting the Russian leader called with Zelenskyy in Turkey last week. Despite Putin’s absence, the Ukrainian and Russian delegations did agree to a prisoner exchange of 1,000 people from each side, though a broader ceasefire or peace deal failed to materialize.
CBS host Margaret Brennan asked Rubio if he spoke with Lavrov about lining up a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin.
‘Well, we talked about a variety of things,’ said Rubio. ‘I wanted to get his readout on his view of how the talks went yesterday. They were not a complete waste of time. For example, there were 1,000 prisoners that are going to be exchanged, and that, from a humanitarian standpoint, is very positive. He explained to me that they are going to be preparing a document outlining their requirements for a ceasefire that would then lead to broader negotiations.’
Rubio said the Ukrainians will be working on their own proposal coming soon, and he hoped proposals from both sides would be ‘serious and viable.’
‘So we’ll have to wait and see. But he wanted me to know, and he communicated in our call, that their side will be working on a series of ideas and requirements that they would have in order to move forward with a ceasefire and further negotiations,’ he said.
Rubio said the U.S. is ‘testing’ whether the Russian are just ‘tapping’ them along, as Trump has suggested could be the case.
‘On the one hand, we’re trying to achieve peace and end a very bloody, costly and destructive war. So there’s some element of patience that is required. On the other hand, we don’t have time to waste,’ Rubio said. ‘There are a lot of other things happening in the world that we also need to be paying attention to. So we don’t want to be involved in this process of just endless talks — there has to be some progress, some movement forward. And if at the end of this, in the next few days, we get a document produced by both sides, and it shows that both sides are… making concessions and being realistic and rational in their approach, then I think we can feel good about continuing to remain engaged.’
‘If, on the other hand, what we see is not very productive, perhaps we’ll have a different assessment. I also agree that, ultimately, one of the things that could help break this logjam — perhaps the only thing that can — is a direct conversation between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. And he’s already openly expressed a desire and a belief that that needs to happen, and hopefully that’ll be worked out soon as well,’ he added.
Pressed on whether the in-person talks between Trump and Putin were being planned, Rubio reiterated that the president had already made that offer publicly.
‘The mechanics of setting that kind of meeting up would require a little bit of work, so I can’t say that’s being planned as we speak in terms of picking a site and a date,’ Rubio said. ‘But the president wants to do it. He wants to do it as soon as feasible. I think the Russian side has also expressed a willingness to do it. And so, now it’s just a question of bringing them, bringing everyone together, and figuring out where and when and that meeting will happen and what it will be about.’
Rubio joined Vice President JD Vance in meeting with Zelenskyy at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Rome on Sunday.
Vance and Rubio later met with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for discussions on trade, the war in Ukraine and NATO spending, according to a spokesperson for the vice president.
‘The individual countries within Europe are important allies of the United States. But, of course, we have some disagreements, as friends sometimes do, on issues like trade, and we also have many agreements and many things we can work on together, and I’m looking forward to the conversation,’ Vance told reporters at the top of the meeting.
After the meeting, the vice president’s office released a statement saying that ‘the leaders discussed their shared goal of ending the bloodshed in Ukraine and provided updates on the current state of negotiations for a ceasefire and lasting peace.’
Fox News’ Meghan Tomes and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
