Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears to be growing into his role in quite interesting ways. He also provides a quite useful window into the thinking of the Trump Administration on issues in which clarity is not always held at a premium. Secretary Rubio paused for press questions on 4 April 2025 at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The text of the exchange follows:Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press. No analysis is necessary. It is input that, given the context, may prove useful.
To my mind the most interesting bit was this--both with respect to the thinking of the Secretary of State and more importantly, the expression of the underlying attitude that will drive future events was this:
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you mentioned that you met with Kirill Dmitriev as well. In order to stop them from dragging their feet and dragging this on, is there anything that you said – perhaps not threats, but is there anything that you said you wanted to see concretely from the Russian side in order to —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes, peace. We want to see peace.
QUESTION: But specifics in terms of getting to this ceasefire first and then the negotiation —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. I mean, peace means you stop shooting at each other. I mean, it’s as simplistic as that. Now, obviously, look, there’s all kinds of conditions for a final peace, and you have to work with both sides. And I’ve said from the beginning the only way a war ends in a negotiated settlement – if it’s not an unconditional surrender, then it is both sides make concessions. We’re not going to prejudge what those concessions are because those concessions will depend on what Ukraine will accept, and Russia will accept. But we have to make concrete steps towards peace.
What we’re not interested in – and I’m not accusing them of this; I’m just telling you – what we’re not interested in is negotiations about negotiations, that we’re not going to continue this forever. So, none of it was threatening. I think it was more an explanation of: This is our timeline, and at some point it will be clear whether you want peace or you don’t want peace. And that time is coming; it’s pretty short.
At the same time, as we now have seen, members of Congress have begun to file bills to increase sanctions. So, there is going to be growing pressure from Capitol Hill to impose sanctions that we’re not going to be able to stop if, in fact, we’re not making progress towards peace. All these factors have been explained in the nicest way possible. Hopefully he’ll take that message back to Moscow and it’ll make clear that we need to begin to see real progress, or we’ll have to conclude that they’re not interested in peace. But let’s hope they are, because I think it would be better for everyone if they are interested —
* * *
QUESTION: Just to follow up, Mr. Secretary. Your allies here and also Ukraine, they believe that Russia is actually preparing for – to launch another campaign, some military campaign, as soon as the winter season ends. Do you have any reason to doubt that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: That they’re going to do what? I’m sorry.
QUESTION: That – that Russia is – Russian side are – they are preparing to start another military campaign.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well then, we’ll know they’re not interested in peace.
What appears clear is that the U.S. still has an interest in driving the course of events in Ukraine, to its satisfaction; it is also clear that this has not changed since the start of the 2nd phase of the Russian invasion in 2022; it is also clear that like the Biden Administration before it, President Trump have evidenced a taste for keeping Ukraine on a leash against the Russians and the European unbalanced as he seeks further European funding; Like Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump appears willing to make territorial concessions son Ukraine's behalf (but of course with Ukraine's consent), will be in no hurry about pathways to NATO (or blocking them) and appears to have little interest in Ukrainian EU membership. Everyone, of course, has an interest in Ukrainian natural resources, and everyone continues to treat Russia like it was the Soviet Union; pretend games tend to create their own realities on the ground. All of those are bargaining objects, of course, unless the Trump Administration bargains them away before the bargaining begins. The Secretary of State, however, was not giving much away--either way. And the Secretary was clear that it is not clear where all of this is going--other than that the Russians continue to stay in character.
What may be the most enduring emerging characterization of the leadership of Mr. Rubio, then, may have come come his own mouth: "All right, let’s do it"
Secretary Rubio delivers remarks to the press
Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio delivers remarks to the press in Brussels, Belgium.
Current Time 0:14
Duration 20:36
SECRETARY RUBIO: All right, let’s do it. I don’t have a statement. Let’s just do it.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, thank you for taking
questions. Diplomacy depends on predictability, reliability, trust.
Markets are crashing around the world for the second day in a row. The
consensus is that the President’s tariffs were much higher than
expected, and based on economic formulas that people do not understand.
What is your reaction, and what is the impact on Europeans? You want
them to spend more on defense —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: — which they are agreeing to finally, but how can they do that when their economies are crashing, and they are now —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, their – no, no, no, no, no – no, their economies are not crashing. The markets are —
QUESTION: But they are.
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, their economies are not
crashing. Their markets are reacting to a dramatic change in the global
order in terms of trade. And so, what happens is pretty
straightforward. If you’re a company and you make a bunch of your
products in China, and all of a sudden shareholders or people that play
the stock market realize that it’s going to cost a lot more to produce
in China, your stock is going to go down. But ultimately, the markets –
as long as they know what the rules are going to be moving forward –
and as long as that’s set and you can, you can sustain where you’re
going to be, the markets will adjust. Businesses around the world,
including in trade and global trade, they just need to know what the
rules are. Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust to those
rules.
So, I don’t think it’s fair to say economies are crashing. Markets
are crashing because markets are based on the stock value of companies
who today are embedded in modes of production that are bad for the
United States. We have to be a country that – we’re the largest
consumer market in the world, and yet the only thing we export is
services, and we need to stop that. We need to get back to a time when
we’re a country that can make things, and to do that we have to reset
the global order of trade.
QUESTION: Yeah, but – sir, there’s a long (inaudible). And the other part of my question —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the worst thing is to leave
it the way it is forever. I mean, this is – just can’t continue. We
can’t continue to be a country that doesn’t make things. We have to be
able to make things to provide jobs for Americans. We – that’s it; it’s
that simple. China is an example. I mean, it’s outrageous. I mean,
they don’t consume anything. All they do is export and flood and
distort markets, in addition to all the tariffs and barriers they put in
place. So, the President rightly has concluded that the current status
of global trade is bad for America and good for a bunch of other
people, and he’s going to reset it. And he’s absolutely right to do it.
QUESTION: But – let me ask you about also the
predictability of relationships with allies. The prime minister of
Greenland – excuse me – the prime minister of Denmark, which at this
point, owns Greenland – so Denmark, a NATO Ally, is saying that it’s
unacceptable, that one country cannot annex another country. And —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, no one’s annexed anything.
It’s going to be up to Greenlanders. The Vice President made that
clear. He’s going to respect the self-determination of Greenlanders.
So, at some point – the Greenlanders have made clear that they want to
be independent of Denmark.
QUESTION: President —
SECRETARY RUBIO: So that’s – Greenland – Denmark
should focus on the fact that the Greenlanders don’t want to be a part
of Denmark. That’s what they should focus on. We didn’t give them that
idea; they’ve been talking about that for a long time. Whenever they
make that decision, they’ll make that decision, and then the – what
we’re not going to do is let China come in now and say, offer them a
bunch of money and become dependent on China.
QUESTION: The President said he would not rule out using military force against Denmark, a NATO Ally, to take —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, he said he would not rule out –
no, no, no – he said he would not rule out – he said I’m not going to
rule out anything if Greenland is encroached upon by a foreign power
like a China or Russia or anybody else. But it doesn’t matter because
Greenlanders are going to make a decision. They’re the ones that want
to get away from Denmark. They’re the ones that want to be independent,
not us. We didn’t come up with that idea; they did. And if they make
that decision, then the United States would stand ready, potentially, to
step in and say, okay, we can create a partnership with you. We’re not
at that stage. But that’s what the Vice President made clear last week
in his visit there. His statement was abundantly clear. He said we
will respect the self-determination of the people of Greenland – people
of Greenland – and they’re the ones that want to leave Denmark. That
wasn’t our idea.
MODERATOR: All right, well, second question here, Missy from Washington Post.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I’d like to ask you about
the Russia-Ukraine negotiations. Can you give us the – your – tell us
about the American assessment of the conditions that Russia put forward
following the – regarding the Black Sea ceasefire talks? And also, the
British and French foreign ministers said this morning that Putin was
dragging his feet. Do you agree with that, that —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Maybe – I mean, he might be. We
don’t know yet. We’re going to find out fairly soon. I mean, look, we
are – here’s what the President wanted to do. He wants to end this war
and he wanted to test it very early in his administration. Is it
possible to end this war on terms that are acceptable, obviously, to
both sides? Because you can’t end a war unless both sides agree. And
that’s what we’re in the process of finding out. We will know soon
enough – in a matter of weeks, not months – whether Russia is serious
about peace or not. I hope they are. It would be good for the world if
that war ended, but obviously we have to test that proposition.
So we’re working through that process. We had a visitor – Mr. Kirill was here[1] this
week. I had a chance to sit down with him. He met with others. He’ll
take some messages back. And the message is: The United States needs
to know whether you’re serious or not about peace. Ultimately, Putin
will have to make that decision; the Russian Federation will have to
make that decision. I think the Ukrainians have shown a willingness to
enter, for example, into a complete ceasefire to create space for
negotiation. At some point here fairly soon – not six months from now –
the Russians and Putin will have to make a decision about whether
they’re serious for peace or not, and I hope they are serious. It would
be good for the world if that war ended.
QUESTION: And what is – what is your assessment of
the Russian conditions that were put forward? And also, Dmitriev said,
following his talks with Mr. Witkoff yesterday, that the U.S. and Russia
might resume direct flights as maybe a confidence building measure. Do
you support that? So, the —
SECRETARY RUBIO: I haven’t heard anything about direct flights.
QUESTION: Okay. What about —
SECRETARY RUBIO: I can tell you – but I don’t know
who’s going to fly on it, because all these people are sanctioned. But I
would just tell you that – the thing I would point to you is this. I’m
not – we’re going to wait and see. The Russians know our position in
terms of wanting to end the war, and we will know from their answers
very soon whether they are serious about proceeding with real peace or
whether it’s a delay tactic. If it’s a delay tactic, the President’s
not interested in that. If this is dragging things out, President
Trump’s not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about
negotiations. We will know soon enough whether or not Russia is serious
about peace. If they are, that will be great. Then we can move
towards peace. If they’re not, then we’ll have to re-evaluate where we
stand and what we do moving forward about it, but we’ll be in no
different a position than we are today or we were when he took office.
He wanted to know early in his administration: is peace possible? We’re
testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace. Their actions –
not their words, their actions – will determine whether they’re serious
or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.
QUESTION: And what about their conditions?
MODERATOR: All right. And let’s – Daphne —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Which conditions?
QUESTION: They put forward additional conditions after you guys had the Black Sea ceasefire.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. So again, I mean, this is
part of the back-and-forth of these sorts of things. I had phone calls
with foreign leaders, and then I read the readout, and it’s like, oh, we
said – no, you never – (inaudible) they said something to me they never
said. I guess that’s part of the game in this place or whatever. But
look, I don’t – bottom line is, to me, at the end of the day, what’s
going to matter here is whether we’re going to move towards peace or
not.
If peace is real, we will know soon enough. If they’re not
interested in peace, we will know soon enough, and we’ll make decisions
on the basis – I hope they are real. There are some promising signs;
there are some troubling signs. It’s not going to be easy. No one ever
said this would be easy, but we’re going to find out sooner rather than
later. And let’s just say I’m hopeful, I remain hopeful, I need to be
hopeful that peace is possible and that the Russians are serious about
peace. We want them to be serious about peace, and hopefully they are,
but we’ll know sooner rather than later.
MODERATOR: All right, Daphne, Reuters.
QUESTION: Hi, sorry, I’m back here.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Your last name’s Reuters? (Laughter.)
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
SECRETARY RUBIO: That’s pretty cool, isn’t it? (Laughter.) Go ahead.
QUESTION: On the 5 percent defense spending target,
have you received pushback to this idea while you’ve been here this
week? And you mentioned yesterday up to 5 percent – was your language –
what do you mean by up to 5 percent?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I said up to a path –
getting up to 5 percent at some point. I’m not saying overnight, but to
get to that point, we think that’s what NATO Allies need to be spending
for NATO to face the threats that itself has identified and
articulated. Here’s the good news. The good news is everyone
generally, with a couple exceptions, are spending more on defense today
than they were three, four or five years ago. That’s positive. That
trend needs to continue. So, the trend lines are good but they need to
continue.
But this is not about spending, okay? This is not about money
necessarily. This is about capability. In order for NATO to be
stronger, it needs partners that are stronger, okay. The United States
commits a lot to NATO and continues to. We are as involved in NATO
today as we have ever been, and we intend to continue to be, but it has
to be a real Alliance, and that means that our Alliance partners have to
increase their own capabilities.
So, hopefully two things have led to that. The first is the war in
Ukraine, I think, has woken up a lot of people on this continent about
real threats and real war. And the other is, I think, the pressure and
the statements of President Trump that have been pretty consistent about
increasing their spending. So, this whole trajectory of more defense
spending began, I believe, back in 2017, 2018 under President Trump’s
first term. We want that trend to continue, and we’re hoping when the
leaders meet in The Hague, that there’ll be further and firmer
commitments in that direction.
I think it’s beneficial to the Alliance. The stronger our partners
in NATO are, the more capable our partners in NATO are, the stronger
NATO is, and everybody should be in favor of that.
QUESTION: And sorry, just to follow up. So, will
you try and get the official target as 5 percent rather than 2 percent?
And will the U.S. commit to 5 percent?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Sure. We’re heading there now. I
mean, we’re going to have to spend more on national security, because
we have a global footprint, and that’s the point that I think has been
made and missed in a lot of places, okay. The United States has
Indo-Pacific alliance obligations as well that we’ve made. We are
currently involved in opening up the Red Sea so that global shipping for
everyone, including our European partners, can become possible again.
We’re engaged in counter-drug and counter-gang interdictions in the
Western Hemisphere. There’s obviously all sorts of issues going on in
different parts of the world, including we’re concerned about a
resurgence of terrorist cells, whether it’s in Africa or in the Middle
East.
So, the U.S. has these global obligations, and we have China that’s
undergoing the largest, most expansive peacetime military expansion in
history. So, we need to confront all of these things, and we’re engaged
in all of those things. So, we’re going to have to increase defense
spending in our country. I think our commitment to NATO isn’t just
3-and-something percent spending of GDP. It’s sustained over an
extraordinary period of time, and that continues.
So, look, I think our partners know they need to do more, they’ve all
indicated they want to do more, they’ve begun to do more, and that
trend needs to continue.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary —
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you mentioned that you met
with Kirill Dmitriev as well. In order to stop them from dragging
their feet and dragging this on, is there anything that you said –
perhaps not threats, but is there anything that you said you wanted to
see concretely from the Russian side in order to —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes, peace. We want to see peace.
QUESTION: But specifics in terms of getting to this ceasefire first and then the negotiation —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. I mean, peace means you
stop shooting at each other. I mean, it’s as simplistic as that. Now,
obviously, look, there’s all kinds of conditions for a final peace, and
you have to work with both sides. And I’ve said from the beginning the
only way a war ends in a negotiated settlement – if it’s not an
unconditional surrender, then it is both sides make concessions. We’re
not going to prejudge what those concessions are because those
concessions will depend on what Ukraine will accept, and Russia will
accept. But we have to make concrete steps towards peace.
What we’re not interested in – and I’m not accusing them of this; I’m
just telling you – what we’re not interested in is negotiations about
negotiations, that we’re not going to continue this forever. So, none
of it was threatening. I think it was more an explanation of: This is
our timeline, and at some point it will be clear whether you want peace
or you don’t want peace. And that time is coming; it’s pretty short.
At the same time, as we now have seen, members of Congress have begun
to file bills to increase sanctions. So, there is going to be growing
pressure from Capitol Hill to impose sanctions that we’re not going to
be able to stop if, in fact, we’re not making progress towards peace.
All these factors have been explained in the nicest way possible.
Hopefully he’ll take that message back to Moscow and it’ll make clear
that we need to begin to see real progress, or we’ll have to conclude
that they’re not interested in peace. But let’s hope they are, because I
think it would be better for everyone if they are interested —
QUESTION: Are more talks planned?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we need to hear an answer to
this. I mean, your – talks are only – we’re going to have talks as
long as talks are about something. They can’t be talks about talks. At
the end – I think initially it was important to talk because we hadn’t
talked to them in a long time, but now we’ve reached the stage where we
need to make progress. And if we’re not making progress towards peace,
then we have a set of factors that we have to take into account. But
hopefully we are going to make progress towards peace. I remain
optimistic that we can. It’ll be hard, it’ll be difficult, but I’m
optimistic that we can.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the Myanmar earthquake. I
mean, normally, in these kind of events, you would have up to 200
Americans with sniffer dogs, special equipment, experts in their field
saving lives on the ground. This has not happened because of the
dismantling of USAID —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that and the fact that it’s
run by a military junta that doesn’t like us, so it’s hard for us to
move around in that country.
QUESTION: But – but aid suppliers say it’s – these
events are always non-political. They went into Syria, for example, in
the Türkiye-Syria earthquake. So, they can (inaudible) —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we’re not the government of
the world. No, we will provide humanitarian assistance just like
everybody else does, and we will do it the best we can. But we also
have other needs we have to balance that against. We’re not walking
away from humanitarian assistance. But again, I go back – there’s a lot
of other rich countries in the world. They should all be pitching in.
We’re going to do our part. We already have people there; we’ll have
more people there. We’ll help as much as we can. It’s not the easiest
place to work, okay? They have a military junta that doesn’t like us,
doesn’t necessarily allow us to operate in that country the way we
wanted to. That would have impeded our response no matter what.
That said, we are willing to continue to help in the humanitarian
crisis. Other countries need to do so as well. China is a very rich
country; India is a rich country. There are a lot of other countries in
the world, and everyone should pitch in. I don’t think it’s fair to
assume that the United States needs to continue to share the burden –
60, 70 percent – of humanitarian aid around the world. We will be in
the business of humanitarian aid, but we have other priorities as well
that are national interest priorities of the United States, and we’re
going to align all those to be properly balanced.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary —
QUESTION: (Inaudible) of your soft power? I mean,
all of the experts in this have said the reason is not because the
politics of Myanmar, but it’s because of the dismantling of USAID. You
simply couldn’t deploy —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I don’t listen – these – so-called experts.
QUESTION: But you simply (inaudible).
SECRETARY RUBIO: Those are not real experts. These are so-called experts.
QUESTION: There was (inaudible) —
SECRETARY RUBIO: These are people that are part of that NGO industrial complex —
QUESTION: Well, they’re (inaudible) —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, no, these are people that make
millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in these NGOs all over the
world that stand up and they get flooded with U.S. taxpayer money, and
then we have to spend 10 – $100 million to get $10 million to people.
We’re not doing that anymore, okay? We have stopped. We are no longer
going to spend 10 million – $100 million dollars to get $10 million to
recipients. We’re not going to fund these global NGOs all over the
world that are living off of this. We’re not doing it. We are prepared
to help them work with governments and appropriate NGOs on the ground
that are delivering assistance.
We will be there and we will be helpful. There are a lot of other
rich countries. They should also pitch in and help, and some of them
are and some of them are not. But we are going to do our part, we’re
going to continue to do our part, but it’s going to be balanced with all
of the other interests we have as a country. We are not a nation – we
are the richest country in the world, but our resources are not
unlimited. They are not unlimited. And we have a massive national
debt, and we have many other priorities as well. And it’s time to
recalibrate all of that. So we’ll be there. We’ll be helpful as much
as we can. We’ve got other things we have to take care of as well, but
we care deeply about what’s happened there. We wish we had a more
cooperative government.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary —
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what’s your —
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the Middle East was part
of your discussion here in NATO, especially that you find support from
members toward your policy of air strikes in Houthis and your maximum
pressure policy toward Iran?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. I mean, on the Houthis,
everybody wants to get their ships through the Red Sea. We’re the only
ones doing anything about it, but everyone wants to get their ships
through there. As I said, we’ve done the world a great favor by taking
on this band of criminals who have unfortunately sophisticated weaponry
that they can use to – I mean, they’ve attacked, what, 150, 160 merchant
vessels – 174 times they’ve attacked the United States Navy?
So I think the world should be grateful to the United States for
being involved in this and doing this. Everyone thanks us for it. I
understand these nations have limited capabilities despite being very
rich countries. Nobody else can project power there and do this. But
that said, we think that mission is going to bear fruit and it’s
necessary. We can’t have a band of criminals controlling that.
In the case of Iran, I don’t know of any country in the world that’s
excited about Iran ever having a nuclear weapons capability. Some are
more forceful about it than others. We’ve had talks about that. As you
know, the President would like to figure out what’s going to happen
there, but he’s also made it clear that there is not going to be a
nuclear-armed Iran. That’s not going to happen under his watch.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary —
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what’s your message to
foreign citizens who may be afraid to come to the United States because
they’re concerned about potentially being detained over some minor
administrative error or because they might have something on their phone
– like criticism of the President or of the Israel-Gaza conflict —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, no, no, no —
QUESTION: — and they don’t want to come into the United States now?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No – first of all, those – people
that have their phones looked at and so forth, and you’ll have to – I’ll
refer you to CBP to go through their processes. But generally, it’s
people that have been flagged coming in for a reason. I would say that
if you’re not coming to the United States to join a Hamas protest or to
come here and tell us about how right Hamas is or to tell us about –
stir up conflict on our campuses and create riots in our street and
vandalize our universities, then you have nothing to worry about. But
thousands – thousands and thousands of people come into the U.S. every
single day to conduct business, to travel, to do all – to visit
relatives. It happens every day, it’s very commonplace, and nobody has a
problem.
I mean, if you’re coming here to create problems, you’re probably
going to have a problem. And I think that’s a good thing. If you’re
coming here to create problems – not here – the United States – you’re
probably going to have a problem. Yeah, we’re not – we’re not going to
continue to be stupid enough to let people into our country who are
coming here to tear things up. Not going happen.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, have the Russians done
anything concrete to make you encouraged that they are truly interested
in peace? I mean, you talk about timeline – I know you’re not going to
give a specific timeline, but are you talking weeks? Are you talking
months?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I think we’re talking weeks
probably, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot that has to happen here in the
next few weeks in order for this to be real. In terms of concrete,
they’ve agreed to certain things. I mean, I think there are things
they’re not striking now that they were before. Obviously both sides
claim that the ceasefire is being violated; it’s typical with ceasefires
like this. But that said, not concrete in terms of – are we closer to
peace? We’re closer to peace simply because we’re talking to both
sides, but we’re not closer to peace because we have a deal on our hands
to end this conflict.
But we’re going to know soon enough. That’s my point I make
everybody – people come, oh, well, Putin, you can’t trust him. It’s not
about trusting Putin; it’s not about trusting anybody. This is about
actions. If you’re interested in peace, you stop fighting and you lay
out the conditions by which you’re willing to end a war. And they have
to be reasonable conditions, right, not crazy stuff. If you’re
interested in peace, that’s what you do. If you’re not interested in
peace, then you sort of drag it out and you come up with excuses and you
– and we know that, and we’re not going to get pulled into that. But
let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Let’s hope it – let’s be optimistic
here that that’s not the direction we’re going. We’re prepared if it
is, but let’s hope that we’re not heading in the direction of this is
just a delay tactic.
MODERATOR: All right, one more and then we wrap up.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Don’t you guys want to go home (inaudible)?
QUESTION: Just to follow up, Mr. Secretary. Your
allies here and also Ukraine, they believe that Russia is actually
preparing for – to launch another campaign, some military campaign, as
soon as the winter season ends. Do you have any reason to doubt that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: That they’re going to do what? I’m sorry.
QUESTION: That – that Russia is – Russian side are – they are preparing to start another military campaign.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well then, we’ll know they’re not interested in peace.
QUESTION: And at this very moment, they’re targeting energy sites. Can I get your reaction to that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Targeting what? I’m sorry.
QUESTION: Energy sites in Ukraine.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, again, this is – I get that
that means they’re violating the ceasefire. That’s not a good sign, but
I think that will tell you this, that ultimately this is a war. Right
now, things are going to be blowing up in Ukraine and inside of Russia
because there’s still a war going on. That’s what we’re trying to end,
okay? If we have a true ceasefire, which is what we wanted, a complete
ceasefire, nothing should be blowing up. But the Russians didn’t agree
to that. They wanted a partial.
And then, obviously, when you get into these partials, it’s one of
the reasons why we didn’t push for a partial – we’ll take it because
it’s better than nothing – but one of the reasons why didn’t we push –
why we didn’t push for a partial, because there’s always disputes about
what are you hitting and what you’re not hitting. But in the end, this
is still a war, and we want it to stop. The fact that religious sites
are being hit or energy sites are being hit or civilian sites are being
hit, that’s why war is a bad thing, and that’s why the President wants
to end it.
As far as them conducting another campaign, well, then that will be a
very clear sign, right? If all of a sudden we wake up tomorrow and the
Russians are launching a massive offensive, then I think that’s a
pretty clear sign they’re not interested in peace. That hasn’t happened
yet; let’s hope it doesn’t happen. We want to know whether they want
to do peace or not, and if they do, then there’s a way there and we’re
willing to help. If they’re not, then it’s good to know early so we can
adjust our policies accordingly.
MODERATOR: All right, everybody, thank you so much.
SECRETARY RUBIO: All right. Thank you, guys.
MODERATOR: And thank you, guys.
# # #
[1] Washington D.C. Secretary Rubio met with Mr. Kirill in Washington D.C.
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