Rubio, Lavrov meet to talk about peace in Ukraine

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed how to end the war in Ukraine on Tuesday, the State Department said. No representatives from Kyiv were present at the meeting. Rubio and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance met with Ukrainian officials in Munich, Germany last week without Russian officials present.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said after the Tuesday meeting that U.S. officials were willing to work on matters of shared interest, according to Russian state media.

What did the leaders say they’d do to end the war in Ukraine? Rubio and Lavrov agreed to appoint high-level officials on both sides to task forces focused on bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, the State Department said. They also agreed to keep moving forward in the process of restoring peace to the region. The two leaders also agreed to restore full diplomatic at their countries' respective embassies and discussed other ways to better manage U.S.-Russia relations in the future.

Do Trump and Putin still plan to meet? No date has been set for a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday. The two leaders spoke on the phone last week, and each expressed a willingness to visit each other. Trump earlier this year urged Russia to end its war in Ukraine and come to the table for peace talks. Putin responded that he was willing to meet with Trump about ending the war.

What does the rest of Europe have to say about this? European leaders have demanded a role in negotiations to end the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country will only submit to peace talks after the United States, Europe, and Ukraine have reached a consensus about how to proceed with ending the war.

French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that he had met with several other European leaders. They agreed that Russia must end its aggression and Ukraine must receive strong security assurances before the war can end. Russia has insisted that European governments must cease their military support for Ukraine before participating in peace talks.