Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday morning that both Russia and Ukraine are bound to “give and get” in order to ultimately achieve a peace agreement.
“You can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides give and get,” Rubio said. “You can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions. That’s a fact. That’s true in virtually any negotiation.”
“If not, it’s just called surrender. Neither side is going to surrender. So both sides are going to have to make concessions.”
During the interview, ABC News’ Martha Raddatz questioned the secretary of state on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin made any concessions during Friday’s summit in Alaska with President Donald Trump. Rubio categorically refused to answer, saying he believes that peace agreements “don’t work when they’re conducted in the media.”
“Of course, concessions were asked, but what utility would there be of me going on a program and telling you, ‘We’ve wagged our finger at Putin and told him, “You must do this, and you must do that.”’ It’s going to make it harder and less likely that they’re going to agree to these things. So these negotiations, as much as everyone would love it to be a live pay-per-view event, only work best when they are conducted privately in serious negotiations.”
Putin expressed his mission to see an end to the conflict. However, according to Fox News, the Russian leader is demanding total control of the Donbas region in exchange for ending the war.
In advance of his Monday meeting at the White House, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy categorically rejected Putin’s demand, stating that such a concession would go against Ukraine’s constitution.
“Ultimately,” Rubio said, “that is something that Ukraine will have to decide.”
“It’s their territory. It’s their country. Ultimately, what they’re willing to live with is what they’ll have to decide on, and maybe the answer is they’re not willing to live with any of this. We don’t know, but that’s what we need to explore in the meantime.”
“The one thing we do know that Ukraine has repeatedly and publicly talked about,” Rubio added, “is security guarantees. They need to be able to enter into security guarantees that ensure that this is never going to happen again. That they’re not going to get re-invaded in two and a half to four years, or whenever it may be. They don’t want to be back here again. They want to be able to go on to rebuild their country and live their lives.”
