LONDON — High-level talks aimed at bringing a pause to fighting in Ukraine disintegrated Wednesday after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff pulled out of the meeting, dealing a blow to Kyiv’s hopes for a short-term peace agreement.
While ministerial talks that had been planned to take place in London fell apart, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg still planned to meet with Ukrainian presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who arrived in London early Wednesday along the Ukrainian defense and foreign ministers.
“Despite everything, we continue working for peace,” Yermak said in a post on X.
The setback comes during a week in which the Trump administration has doubled down in efforts to push Kyiv and Moscow towards a truce. Next week marks 100 days of a second presidential term for Trump, who promised to end the war on his first day back in office. Rubio suggested last week that the U.S. may walk away from ceasefire efforts failing any further progress.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce confirmed Tuesday that Rubio would skip the meeting hours after saying the opposite. “That is not a statement regarding the meetings. It’s a statement about logistical issues in his schedule,” she said.
Despite initial plans to attend the slated talks, neither Rubio nor Witkoff were London on Wednesday, a European diplomat told NBC News.
The U.K.’s foreign ministry issued said in a statement that “the Ukraine peace talks meeting with foreign ministers today is being postponed,” with top officials from Britain, France and Germany also confirming their absence.
Expectations that Kyiv and Moscow would make a deal to end their three-year-long war this week remained low after the U.S. presented Ukraine and its European allies with peace proposals last week in Paris that both sides saw as unacceptable, according to NBC News’ international partner, Sky News.
Under a “terms sheet” offered by Rubio and Witkoff, a land-for-peace deal would recognize Russia’s currently illegal annexation of Crimea and work towards lifting European Union sanctions on Russia. Both parties have since rejected the terms.
After months of upbeat statements on indirect U.S.-led talks, but limited practical engagement, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday suggested for the first time that he would be open to bilateral ceasefire talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.