The United States will know in a matter of weeks if Russia is serious about peace with Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday, after European allies accused Moscow of stalling over the Trump administration's call for a ceasefire,
Reuters reports.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has promised to bring a quick end to the three-year-old war, has for weeks said he believes Russia's Vladimir Putin is committed to peace.
Sources have told Reuters the White House has grown wary of Putin's intentions in recent days, although Trump continues to signal publicly his belief that Putin wants to end the war.
"We will know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not. I hope they are," Rubio said at the end of a two-day NATO meeting.
"If this is dragging things out, President Trump's not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations," Rubio said.
"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."
Moscow rejected a U.S. proposal in March for a full 30-day ceasefire after Ukraine said it would agree. The warring sides then agreed to a limited pause in attacks on each other's energy infrastructure, which both accuse the other of violating. Washington says it is still in talks with both sides.
