Washington is hoping to end the Ukraine conflict through diplomacy and expects the next week to be very critical for negotiations

The US administration has abstained from imposing new sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, believing such a move would jeopardize negotiations and prolong hostilities, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said.

Speaking to NBC News' Meet the Press on Sunday, Rubio questioned the usefulness of placing new restrictions on Moscow, stating Washington was "hoping to see" whether the diplomacy would work first.

"The minute you start doing that kind of stuff, you're walking away from it, you've now doomed yourself to another two years of war and we don't want to see it happen," the top diplomat said.

Rubio claimed that the US is the only country or institution speaking to both Kiev and Moscow, and only US President Donald Trump has the potential to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table.

The upcoming week is expected to be "very critical" for the White House with regard to the talks, as the administration is trying to make a "determination about whether this is an endeavor that we want to continue to be involved in." While Washington does not want to walk away, it does not want to "spend time on something that's not going to get us there" either, the secretary explained.

"There are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic. We're close, but we're not close enough," he said.

The remarks from the US secretary of state come a day after Trump threatened Moscow with new sanctions over the conflict, accusing Russia's leadership of trying to drag out hostilities and of "shooting missiles" into Ukraine for "no reason" over the past few days. Moscow maintains it only targets facilities and infrastructure used by Kiev's military, and has repeatedly denied accusations of staging indiscriminate strikes on civilian areas.

Trump's threats came as Moscow once again reiterated its readiness for discussions with Kiev without preconditions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the topic was brought up by Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Friday.

Ukraine's leader, Vladimir Zelensky, explicitly banned negotiations with Russia for as long as Putin is in charge back in October 2022. Since then, he has seemingly softened his position, claiming the negotiating ban concerned everyone in the country but himself. Most recently, Kiev has demanded an unconditional ceasefire before any direct talks can happen.

(RT.com)