The United States wants to check the seriousness of Russia's intentions to end the war. "There were no negotiations, we did not sit down over a map and start drawing lines," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with Fox News on February 26, UNN reports.
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"It's not about trusting the Russians. It's about actions. Either they are serious about stopping the war, and we will find out when we get in contact with them. We will find out soon enough. If they make maximalist demands that they know cannot be fulfilled, we know they are not serious. But we have to check it out, right? That's the only way to know if it's possible or not," Rubio said.
"And we were very clear with the Russians. There were no negotiations. We did not sit down over a map and start drawing lines. We said, if you are interested, we can't do anything with you, we can't cooperate with you economically, we can't interact with you on a bunch of other things," the US Secretary of State said.
He emphasized that "this cannot happen until the war is over." "And that was our point of view: if you want closer cooperation with the United States on a bunch of other issues around the world, both geopolitical and economic, this war has to end. And so we need to see how serious they are about that, and that's what we're doing, and that's what the president has asked us to do, and that's what we're going to try to do here," Rubio said.