WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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AUTHOR:M.J. GDNUS
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin's envoy this week and that, as he stated, he "sent him back to Moscow with a message that Russia's clock is ticking" regarding progress in peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, Al Jazeera Balkans reports.
"That time is coming and it's quite short. The US wants to see concrete steps and at some point it will be clear whether Russia wants peace or not," Rubio told reporters at the end of a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
He explained that "it's not a threat" but the mindset of the Donald Trump administration.
Ukrainian and European leaders have made it clear that they believe Putin is stalling, convinced that time is on his side, while Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff, who has met Putin twice this year, have insisted that Putin really wants a peace deal.
“Of course, Russia wants peace. On the right terms. On Moscow’s terms,” a senior NATO official said on the sidelines of meetings in Brussels attended by Rubio.
Rubio has traveled to Saudi Arabia twice in the past two months for talks with top Russian and Ukrainian officials to try to kickstart talks on a ceasefire and a final agreement to end the three-year war.
Putin’s envoy to Washington, Kirill Dmitriev, told CNN on Thursday that the recently agreed ceasefire, to halt attacks on energy infrastructure in Ukraine and Russia, was a sign of success, calling it “the first de-escalation in three years.”
A senior NATO official told CNN that the specific terms of the ceasefire in energy infrastructure are still unclear and that Russia is still using short-range drones to attack.
Security assurances
“There are still disagreements between Ukraine and Russia about what exactly is on the list of prohibited energy targets,” the senior NATO official said. More broadly, he said, there is no sign that Russia’s overall objectives in Ukraine have changed, which he said is evidenced both by its actions on the battlefield and in U.S.-led negotiations.
“The Kremlin will continue to insist that Russia is ready to talk, but there is a difference between talking and negotiating. We remain skeptical that Putin’s team is coming to the table with good intentions,” the senior NATO official said.
In Brussels, foreign ministers held a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council to strengthen member states' support for Ukraine, at which no progress was made in terms of committing the US to long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, which the Trump administration has so far refused to do, according to the American TV channel.
