US and Ukraine report progress on ending Russia war but offer few details

Evening Standard

Top US and Ukrainian officials said they were making progress towards ending the Russia-Ukraine war but provided scant details as they discussed the American proposal to achieve peace despite concerns among many of Washington’s European allies that the plan was far too conciliatory to Moscow.US secretary of state Marco Rubio said high-stakes talks in Geneva were “very worthwhile” and constituted the most productive day in “a very long time” on larger efforts to end the fighting.

Transcript

00:00Well, I'm not going to get into the details on the issues.

00:02This is a very delicate moment, and it's important.

00:04Like I said, there's not agreement on those yet.

00:06Some of it is semantics or language.

00:08Others require higher-level decisions and consultation.

00:12Others, I think, just need more time to work through.

00:14As an aside, I will mention that there were items that we were discussing as part of the original 28.

00:19It evolved.

00:20This is a living, breathing document.

00:22Every day with input, it changes.

00:24There were some that involved equities or the role of the EU or of NATO or so forth.

00:29And those we kind of segregated out because we just met with the national security advisors for various European countries.

00:35And those are things we'll have to discuss with them because it involves them.

00:39So we sort of really focused on the ones that were bilateral in nature for the most part.

00:43So there are a couple – none of it insurmountable.

00:45I can tell you that the items that remain open are not insurmountable.

00:48We just need more time than what we have today.

00:51I honestly believe we'll get there.

00:52But I can tell you, I guess, that I feel very optimistic that we can get something done here

00:59because we made a tremendous amount of progress today.

01:01The deadline is we want to get this done as soon as possible.

01:04Obviously, you know, we would love it to be Thursday.

01:05We'd love to be – ultimately, the important point today is that we have made substantial progress.

01:10We've really moved forward.

01:11So I feel very optimistic that we're going to get there in a very reasonable period of time very soon.

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