US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York.
According to Russian media, the meeting lasted about an hour.
Marco Rubio, in his meeting with Lavrov, repeated the US president’s call for an end to the killings.
“The secretary reiterated President Trump’s call for an end to the killings and the need for Moscow to take significant steps to reach a long-term resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war”, State Department First Deputy Speaker Tommy Pigott said.
The Russian side has yet to announce the outcome of that meeting.
Rubio and Lavrov have already met several times, they also maintain regular telephone contacts.
The day before, US President Donald Trump, in a post published after his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York on the social network Truth Social, in particular, questioned Russia’s military and economic strength, called it a “paper tiger” and noted that with EU support, Ukraine might be able to wrest its territories from Russia “and even go further”. Such a statement was a sudden shift in Trump’s rhetoric in favour of Ukraine.
At the same time, there is no indication yet that the statement will be accompanied by a change in US policy towards Russia, in particular, the decision to impose tough new sanctions against Moscow, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking during his trip to New York this week, has not been announced by the US president.
The Kremlin called Trump’s thesis that Ukraine can reclaim the territories occupied by Russia erroneous.