US threatens to abandon peacemaking efforts in Ukraine unless progress made within ‘days’

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US will “walk away” from its attempts to end the war in Ukraine if there is no clear sign of a ceasefire in the coming days, Reuters reported on Friday.

“We need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks,” Rubio told reporters after meeting representatives of the EU and Ukraine in Paris.

Rubio said that while US President Donald Trump was still interested in reaching an agreement, there were “a lot of other really important things going on that deserve just as much, if not more attention”.

Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, dismissed the likelihood of any ceasefire being reached in the current climate, RIA Novosti reported.

“We attempted a limited ceasefire for energy infrastructure, which was broken by the Ukrainian side. In these circumstances, it is simply unrealistic to talk about a ceasefire at this stage,” Nebenzya said.

On Thursday, Trump said that Washington was expecting to receive a response from Russia to its proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine “this week”.

Last week, Axios wrote that the US could impose fresh sanctions on Russia if Moscow did not agree to a ceasefire by the end of April. At the end of March, Trump also threatened Russia with secondary duties on the oil Moscow supplies to other countries unless Putin signed up to a ceasefire agreement.