Rubio meets with Russian foreign minister after Trump slams Putin
CNN
Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, just days after President Donald Trump expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not engaging in peace talks with Ukraine, according to a senior State Department official.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, just days after President Donald Trump expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not engaging in peace talks with Ukraine. The meeting took place in Malaysia on the sidelines of a gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN — putting the Ukraine war center stage on a trip that was meant to focus on strengthening alliances in the region. Neither of the top diplomats made remarks before the meeting, and Rubio did not respond when asked what his message to his Russian counterpart would be but looked at Lavrov and winked. It comes as Trump reiterated multiple times this week that Ukraine needed defensive weapons after a halt in the weapons flow to the country, directed by the Pentagon, set off confusion about continued US military support for Ukraine. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not inform the White House before he gave the green light to pause shipments of weapons to Ukraine last week and the move also caught Rubio off guard, CNN reported. Shortly after the halt Trump said at least some of the weapons shipments would continue. “Putin is not — he’s not treating human beings right,” Trump said of his Russian counterpart on Tuesday. “He’s killing too many people.”
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