US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks in Manila on Thursday, July 23, in another attempt to revive diplomatic efforts over Russia’s war against Ukraine – but the meeting produced no visible breakthrough. The roughly 35-minute meeting took place on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations gathering in the Philippines, amid stalled US-led efforts to find a negotiated end to the war and continued Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Speaking afterward, Rubio described the discussion with Lavrov as frank but made clear that Washington did not expect a single meeting to resolve the conflict. The US remains prepared to play a constructive role in ending what Rubio called a “senseless war,” but previous proposals have failed to produce an agreement acceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow. Rubio indicated that Washington now believes a different diplomatic approach may be required. “We’ll have to find new suggestions and new ideas,” Rubio told reporters, adding that earlier proposals rejected by Ukraine were unlikely to become more acceptable to Kyiv now. The comments appear to further distance Washington from Moscow’s claim that US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached an understanding on the framework for ending the war during their August 2025 summit in Alaska.