The United States says it remains committed to peace efforts in Ukraine but intends to scale back its role as mediator, the US State Department has said.
“We are not going to fly around the world at the drop of a hat to mediate meetings; that is now between the two parties, and now is the time that they need to present and develop concrete ideas about how this conflict is going to end,” spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters.
The announcement marks a significant shift in Washington’s approach and comes after months of stalled diplomatic efforts to get Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a deal to end Russia’s war, now in its fourth year.
In April, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington may be ready to “move on” from ceasefire efforts if no progress was made soon.
After weeks of efforts by the Trump administration to broker a ceasefire failed to end the fighting, Rubio said the US administration wants to decide “in a matter of days whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks.”
The policy pivot also suggests US President Donald Trump is becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress made after boasting on the campaign trail ahead of November’s presidential election that he could end the war within a day.
“If one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re just going to take a pass,” Trump said on 18 April.
US Vice President JD Vance appeared to mirror Trump’s weariness with the peace process on 1 May, saying in an interview with Fox News that the war was unlikely to end “any time soon.”
It is “going to be up to the Russians and Ukrainians now that each side knows what the other’s terms for peace are. It’s going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict,” he said.
Intensified diplomatic efforts
The US intensified its diplomatic efforts earlier this year, including negotiating proposals for a 30-day ceasefire and partial truces aimed at halting attacks on civilian energy infrastructure.
The US also held talks with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, sparking a nervous reaction from Ukraine and its European allies that they were being frozen out of the peace process.
Moscow has so far stalled on or rejected all peace proposals, and Russian forces have intensified strikes across Ukraine.
A barrage of attacks on Kyiv on 24 April, which killed at least 12 people, prompted a rare rebuke of Russian President Vladimir Putin by his US counterpart.
“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on Kyiv. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, stop! 5,000 soldiers a week are dying,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“Lets get the peace deal done,” Trump concluded.
Kyiv has accepted US-backed ceasefire plans and continues to demand an unconditional cessation of hostilities. However, it has repeatedly warned that delayed progress on Moscow’s side was a time-wasting tactic.
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