U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that ending the war in Ukraine would require concessions from all sides, following a day of talks with Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia.
He also announced that the U.S. and Russia had agreed to restore embassy staffing, establish a high-level team to negotiate peace in Ukraine and enhance economic cooperation.
Rubio noted that actions in recent years had diminished the operational capacity of both countries' diplomatic missions, signaling a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations after years of tension following Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
"We're going to need to have vibrant diplomatic missions that are able to function normally in order to be able to continue these conduits," he said, at the conclusion of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the very notion of which had already upended years of American foreign policy and alarmed NATO allies.
