US state secretary: Trump "will know the right time and place" to sanction Russia
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that new sanctions against Russia could undermine potential negotiations, stressing that Trump "will know the right time and place" to introduce them.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders are hoping to persuade Trump at the NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday 25 June to introduce new sanctions against Russia, as Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin has repeatedly rejected US proposals for a ceasefire.
"If we did what everybody here wants us to do, and that is come in and crush them with more sanctions, we probably lose our ability to talk to them about the ceasefire and then who’s talking to them?" Rubio said in an interview with Politico.
He added that Trump "will know the right time and place" for new economic measures. Rubio asserted that the presidential administration is working with Congress to ensure that Trump has enough flexibility regarding the implementation of such measures.
However, if the US decides to impose sanctions, he added, it would likely mean that the window for talks with Russia will close. "If he does it, you’re almost admitting that this is not going to be negotiated anytime soon," Rubio said.
"We’re going to continue to engage. In the sense that if there’s an opportunity for us to make a difference and get them to the table, we’re going to take it," the US secretary of state added.
As negotiations with Russia remain stalled, Rubio remarked that Moscow is convinced it can secure its territorial aims through military force, an assessment Washington does not share.
"Our sense of it is that the Russians are going to try to achieve in the battlefield what they’ve demanded in the negotiating table, which is certain territories [maintain] their administrative lines and the like. We think it’s going to be a lot harder for them to achieve that than they think it’s going to be," Rubio added.
Earlier, at the NATO-Ukraine Council, Rubio reaffirmed the Trump administration's stance that the Russo-Ukrainian war cannot be resolved by military means.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Moscow only understands the language of force and that new devastating sanctions and increased investment in Ukraine’s defence are urgently needed.