The United States will make additional decisions on Moscow and Kiev based on its assessment of the memorandum on settling the conflict in Ukraine that Russia is preparing, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also acting National Security Advisor to the US President.
„We hope that we can reach a peace agreement. The Russians are expected to submit a document, as they call it, a peace memorandum, in the next few days, outlining their demands for a ceasefire, which could then lead to broader negotiations and a final agreement,“ the secretary of state said at a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee, commenting on the situation around Ukraine.
“I think we will learn a lot from the content of this peace memorandum. If it turns out to be reasonable, then we will make progress. If not, we are no closer to resolving the conflict, and the president will have other options available to him. “Let's hope for the former, not the latter“, Rubio said.
He confirmed that “the president wants to maintain his ability to communicate with both sides in this debate“. "We have made it clear to the Russian side that, first of all, the president retains the authority to impose sanctions, which he has not yet used," Rubio continued. In addition, he recalled, "there are efforts in Congress to impose sanctions." "At some point, Congress will run out of patience with the pace of progress towards a peace agreement, and it is entirely possible that it will impose sanctions on Russia that could be even more severe than those that the president can impose," the senior US diplomat added.
According to Rubio, "Russia wants what it does not have now: it wants to occupy lands that it does not currently occupy." "And Ukraine wants what it cannot: to return Russia to its 2014 borders or even earlier," the Secretary of State added. “So essentially we have a largely protracted and stalemated conflict where people are dying every day,“ Rubio said.
“The president's goal is to end this. There is no military solution to the conflict in Ukraine,“ Rubio said. “This has to be a negotiated solution that ensures a sustainable peace. Not a peace that lasts three years and then another war starts,“ the secretary of state said. “To achieve this peace, these negotiations, you have to be able to talk to both sides. Both sides are going to have to make concessions. Each side is going to have to give up what it wants and give the other side what it wants. That's how negotiations work,“ Rubio said.