Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators on Tuesday that the United States would hit Russia with fresh sanctions if talks over a Ukraine peace deal remained stuck. He also rejected claims that the White House is easing military help for Kyiv.
Rubio spoke in a Senate hearing one day after President Donald Trump spent two hours on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a call that ended without a clear step toward ending the war that began when Moscow invaded its neighbour.
Several Democratic lawmakers said the president squandered the chance to raise the heat on the Kremlin. They faulted him for not warning Putin that Washington and its European partners would widen sanctions unless the Russian leader agreed to a cease-fire.
During testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio was asked about a bill led by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. The proposal would slap wide-ranging new punishments on Moscow, aiming to choke the money it uses to fight the war.
The measure calls for a 500 percent tariff on goods coming from countries that continue to buy Russian oil and gas, along with other limits on finance and technology.
“If in fact it is clear that the Russians are not interested in a peace deal and they want to keep fighting a war, it may very well come to that point,” Rubio said. But he added that Trump thinks “right now if we start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking. There’s value in us being able to talk to them and drive them to get to the table.”
Democratic committee member Senator Jeanne Shaheen said Putin offered no “meaningful negotiation that would end this war in Ukraine.” She added, “As President Trump has admitted, Vladimir Putin is taking him for a ride.”
Senator Chris Van Hollen went further, telling Rubio, “You’ve teamed up with President Trump to throw the Ukrainian people under the bus, and have been played like a fiddle by Vladimir Putin.”
Rubio affirmed that the Trump administration has leverage against Russia
Rubio insisted that the administration has the “same leverage today that we had under the previous administration.” He noted that “when Vladimir Putin woke up this morning, he had the same set of sanctions on him that he’s always had since the beginning of this conflict,” and he stressed that American weapons are still moving into Ukraine.
“Putin hasn’t got a single concession, he hasn’t got a single sanction lifted,” Rubio said.
Even so, the Florida Republican argued the war can end only through a negotiated deal. “What the president’s trying to do is end a war,” he told the panel, saying the United States must keep channels open so both sides will sit down.
His remarks did little to calm allies who had hoped for tougher language in Monday’s Trump-Putin talk. The call produced no pledge from Moscow to halt its attacks. Instead, Putin suggested that both parties draft a “memorandum” that would outline future treaty terms, a move critics dismissed as a stalling tactic that allowed Russian troops to keep fighting while talks dragged on.
European and Ukrainian leaders also voiced unease after Trump floated the idea of stepping back as mediator and proposing that the Vatican take over the role instead. They warned that every day without a truce brings more civilian deaths and damage across Ukraine.
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