MANILA -- The top US and Russian diplomats met in a new push to find an end to Moscow's more-than-four-year-old war on Ukraine, but both sides signaled no new breakthroughs or cause for optimism.
The July 23 meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came with US-efforts to broker a peace deal frozen as the Trump administration shifts focus to the Iran war, and the Kremlin shows no sign of softening its maximalist war demands.
Following their meeting, which lasted just 35 minutes, Rubio described the talks as "good" and "frank" but said fresh proposals would be needed after previous peace ideas failed. He declined to disclose details.
"The United States...is prepared to play a constructive role in bringing about an end to a senseless war," Rubio said when pressed by RFE/RL.
Asked whether the meeting had produced any breakthrough, Rubio dismissed expectations of rapid progress.
"You think we settled the war in Ukraine in our 30 minutes here in Asia? That's not the way it works," he said.
Asked later by RFE/RL about when Russia will stop the war, Lavrov appeared to either ignore the question or not hear it.
In a statement, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Lavrov expressed Moscow's unhappiness with US weapons supplies to Ukraine, and he accused Ukraine's European allies of "destabilizing policies" that seek a "strategic defeat" for Russia.
Lavrov also raised the issue of a meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, the ministry said.
The Kremlin has insisted that, in Anchorage, Trump and Putin reached a key agreement on ending the Ukraine war. Rubio and other US officials have repeatedly denied that.
“We'll have to find new suggestions and new ideas," Rubio told reporters. "Certainly that one was not acceptable to Ukraine at the time, and I don't think it's acceptable to them now either. In fact, it's probably less acceptable to them.”
Any eventual peace agreement would likely require "new ideas and some new concepts," Rubio said. Washington was prepared to contribute proposals, he said, "if the opportunity presents itself and the conditions are right."
Asked about the Lavrov-Rubio meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow was not overly optimistic.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian troops have battled Russian forces to a standstill, with Russians unit grinding forward at a glacial pace, with eyewatering casualties. A long-range drone campaign by Ukraine has choked Russian gasoline refineries, and Russia continues to ravage Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles and drones.
Among other things, Russia continues to insist on full control of the occupied parts of Ukraine's east, while Kyiv has rejected territorial concessions.
Rubio said Russia was losing "upwards of 5,000 to 6,000 soldiers a week" and noted Ukraine had also paid "a tremendous price," citing civilian deaths and increased strikes on Kyiv.
Rubio said both Russia and Ukraine had strong incentives to end the war but he said the main obstacle was finding terms acceptable to both sides.
"That's been the challenge: an end that both sides can accept," he said.
Previous Proposals No Longer Viable
Washington has been the largest single supplier of weaponry and military hardware to Kyiv since the onset of the all-out invasion in February 2022.
That pipeline of weaponry has slowed since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, though supplies continue to be routed via European allies -- which has irked Moscow.
Responding to a question about whether Lavrov had urged Washington to halt arms supplies to Ukraine, Rubio said there had been no change in US policy, saying the United States continued to sell weapons through NATO mechanisms while simultaneously pursuing diplomacy.
“We want the war to end," Rubio said. "We're prepared to play whatever positive role we can to end the war.”
He cautioned that a settlement would require extensive negotiations rather than a single meeting.
"That's not going to happen at a press conference. That's not going to happen in one meeting here in the Philippines," he said.
Rubio said Trump remained focused on ending the conflict because "people stop dying" and so Ukraine could rebuild while young Russian soldiers were no longer being killed.
"He thinks it's a stupid war. He thinks it's a senseless war," Rubio said.
Asked by RFE/RL whether Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could meet soon, Rubio said US officials remained in frequent contact with Kyiv and had met Ukrainian representatives more often than Russian officials.
Rubio also said he had not discussed Russia's war in Ukraine with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during separate talks because the two sides had "a lot of other stuff to talk about."
