U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday denied claims by senior Russian officials that Washington and Moscow had reached an agreement on ending the war in Ukraine during last year’s presidential summit in Alaska.
“There was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement. If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end of the war,” Rubio told reporters, reiterating Washington’s readiness to play a “constructive role” in peace talks.
Over the past week, at least three senior Russian officials have accused the White House of failing to stick to an apparent mutual understanding reached by Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on how to resolve the conflict, or what the Kremlin sometimes refers to as the “spirit of Anchorage.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a gathering of foreign envoys earlier in the week that Trump administration officials “appear to be abandoning any claim to the role of an objective mediator and are instead pursuing a course of escalating sanctions pressure on Russia.”
In separate comments, Lavrov claimed Putin and Trump, during their meeting in Alaska, had “agreed on how to end the fighting [in Ukraine] and begin resolving all the remaining issues at the negotiating table.” He did not provide details on what exactly the two leaders had allegedly agreed upon.
