00:00The second question here, Missy from Washington Post.
00:03Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask you about the Russia-Ukraine negotiations.
00:07Can you give us the, tell us about the American assessment of the conditions that Russia put
00:12forward following the, regarding the Black Sea ceasefire talks?
00:17And also, the British and French foreign minister said this morning that Putin
00:22was dragging his feet. Do you agree with that?
00:25Maybe, he might be. We don't know yet. We're going to find out fairly soon. I mean, look,
00:28we are, here's what the president wanted to do. He wants to end this war, and he wanted to test
00:33it very early in his administration. Is it possible to end this war on terms that are
00:37acceptable, obviously, to both sides? Because you can't end a war unless both sides agree.
00:41And that's what we're in the process of finding out. We will know soon enough, in a matter of
00:44weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not. I hope they are. It would
00:48be good for the world if that war ended. But obviously, we have to test that proposition.
00:53So we're working through that process. We had a visitor that, Mr. Carrillo was here this week,
00:57had a chance to sit down with him. He met with others. He'll take some messages back.
01:01And the message is, the United States needs to know whether you're serious or not about peace.
01:05Ultimately, Putin will have to make that decision. The Russian Federation will have to make that
01:08decision. I think the Ukrainians have shown a willingness to enter, for example, into a
01:13complete ceasefire to create space for negotiation. At some point here, fairly soon, not six months
01:20from now, the Russians and Putin will have to make a decision about whether they're serious
01:24about peace or not. And I hope they are serious. It would be good for the world if that war ended.
01:28What is your assessment of the Russian conditions that were put forward? And also,
01:31Dmitry has said, following his talks with Mr. Whitcock yesterday, that the U.S. and
01:35Russia might resume direct flights as maybe a confidence-building measure. Do you support that?
01:41I haven't heard anything about direct flights. I can tell you, but I don't know who's going to fly
01:44on it because all these people are sanctioned. But I would just tell you that the thing I would
01:49point to you is this. We're going to wait and see. The Russians know our position in terms of
01:54wanting to end the war, and we will know from their answers very soon whether they are serious
01:58about proceeding with real peace or whether this is a delay tactic. It's a delay tactic. The
02:03President's not interested in that. If this is dragging things out, Donald, President Trump's
02:07not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations. We will know
02:12soon enough whether or not Russia's serious about peace. If they are, that'll be great. Then we can
02:16move towards peace. If they're not, then we'll have to reevaluate where we stand and what we
02:20do moving forward about it. But we'll be in no different a position than we are today or we were
02:25when he took office. He wanted to know early in his administration, is peace possible? We're testing
02:30to see if the Russians are interested in peace. Their actions, not their words, their actions will
02:34determine whether they're serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.
02:38And what about their conditions? Which conditions?
02:41They put forward additional conditions after you had the Black Sea ceasefire.
02:44Yeah, so again, I mean, this is part of the back and forth of these sorts of things. I've had phone
02:49calls with foreign leaders, and then I read the readout, and it's like, oh, we said, no, you never,
02:52they came, they said something to me they never said. I guess that's part of the game in this
02:57place or whatever. But look, I don't, bottom line is, to me at the end of the day, what's going to
03:01matter here is whether we're going to move towards peace or not. If peace is real, we will know soon
03:05enough. If they're not interested in peace, we will know soon enough, and we'll make decisions
03:09on the basis, I hope they are real. There are some promising signs, there are some troubling signs.
03:14It's not going to be easy. No one ever said this would be easy. But we're going to find out sooner
03:18rather than later. And let's just say, I'm hopeful, I remain hopeful, I need to be hopeful
03:23that peace is possible, and that the Russians are serious about peace. We want them to be serious
03:27about peace. And hopefully they are, but we'll know sooner rather than later.
Comments