Following a high-level meeting between US and Russian officials, the State Department said Washington and Moscow will begin taking steps to normalize the diplomatic relationship between the two superpowers. US-Russian diplomacy sank during the first Donald Trump administration, and Joe Biden cut nearly all contact with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff met with a Russian delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday. During a press conference after the meeting, Rubio said the parties agreed on four points.
“First is that we are going to work – we’re going to point our teams’ respectively to work very quickly to reestablish the functionality of our respective missions in Washington and in Moscow.” He continued, “For us to be able to continue to move down this road, we need to have diplomatic facilities that are operating and functioning normally.”
US and Russian ties have declined over the past decade. Rubio claimed that President Trump is uniquely equipped for this task. However, during his first administration, Washington significantly set back its diplomatic relationship with Russia.
Trump previously set records for sanctioning Russia and expelling Russian diplomats from the US. He destroyed two key nuclear arms control agreements with Moscow and refused to engage with the Kremlin on extending the New Start Treaty.
Lavrov said he viewed the summit as a success. “We did not just listen but heard each other, and I have reason to believe the American side has better understood our position,” Russia’s top diplomat explained.
Witkoff gave a glowing response to what was discussed during the meeting. “It was positive, upbeat, constructive, everybody [was] there to get to the right outcome, solution-based. We discussed it afterwards. We couldn’t have imagined a better result after this session. It was very, very solid,” he told the press.
Rubio went on to explain the final three points. “The second point is that we’re going to appoint a high-level team from our end to help negotiate and walk – work through the end of the conflict in Ukraine in a way that’s enduring and acceptable to all the parties engaged.” He continued, “The third point is to begin to work at a high level as well to begin to discuss and think about and examine both the geopolitical and economic cooperation that could result from an end to the conflict in Ukraine.”
The top American diplomat added, “The last thing we agreed to [is] that, while our teams are going to be working on all of this, the five of us that were here today are going to remain engaged in this process to make sure that it’s moving along in a productive way.”
While Tuesday’s talks were the first significant effort aimed at ending the war in Ukraine since April 2022, Trump’s effort to engage with Russia has been condemned by much of the political class in the West. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that he will refuse to abide by any agreement inked between the US and Russia.
According to NSA Waltz, the two sides did not set a date for a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “But the two presidents talked about meeting and expect to meet,” he said.
When asked about American sanctions on Russia, Rubio did not commit to attempting to normalize economic ties between Washington and Moscow but indicated the embargo on Russia could be rolled back.
“Sanctions are all the result of this conflict. There are sanctions that were imposed as a result of this conflict. And so I would say to you that in order to bring an end to any conflict there has to be concessions made by all sides,” Rubio explained.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute. He hosts The Kyle Anzalone Show and is co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Connor Freeman.
