“We need a roadmap for further action to resolve this conflict,” said Rubio. Lavrov later confirmed the change in posture but refused to elaborate, telling reporters with a characteristic shrug: “So I told you.”
Russian expert Alexander Ionov, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council, told Pravda.Ru that the so-called new approach likely involves excluding European leaders from the negotiation process. He accused them of having sabotaged the Istanbul agreements between Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine.
“We saw Macron and [UK Prime Minister] Starmer interfere, and now [German Chancellor] Merz is sending messages to both Trump and Putin,” Ionov said.
According to Ionov, Moscow now seeks a direct dialogue with Washington, viewing Trump as central to resolving the Ukraine crisis. He emphasized that Trump risks failing to fulfill his campaign promise to end the war if he continues a “halfway” position, especially after setbacks in managing the Iran-Israel crisis.
“It’s about more than words now—additional weapons deliveries outside the Biden package for 2026–2027 are on the table,” Ionov noted. Russia, for its part, has maintained the same negotiating terms for three years and will not accept the demands of what it sees as a losing side, he added.
Political analyst Alexander Nosovich, editor-in-chief of the portals RuBaltic.Ru and Eurasia, refrained from guessing the nature of Moscow’s new approach but drew conclusions based on statements from both capitals. He noted that President Vladimir Putin has always maintained two non-negotiable conditions for a ceasefire: a complete halt to Western military aid to Ukraine and an end to Ukraine’s domestic mobilization campaign.
“Neither of these has been fulfilled, so the fighting continues. Western countries still supply Zelensky with weapons, which makes peace impossible,” Nosovich said.
He added that recent Russian strikes against Ukrainian military recruitment centers could reflect efforts to halt Ukraine’s forced mobilization, possibly agreed upon with Washington behind closed doors.
Nosovich also believes that Trump may be preparing to publicly revise the U.S. role in Ukraine.
“He increasingly frames the U.S. not as a participant but as a mediator in the conflict. We’ve seen a visible reduction in American activity in Ukraine,” he observed. The analyst doesn’t rule out Trump using his Monday announcement to signal either a U.S. withdrawal or a shift to a more neutral role.
The New York Times recently reported that President Putin plans to ignore pressure from the U.S. despite Trump’s disillusionment, convinced that Russian battlefield momentum is growing and Ukraine’s defenses could collapse in the coming months. According to Kremlin insiders, Moscow has long anticipated harsher U.S. sanctions but hopes for a compromise once military operations end.
