Trump delegates State Secretary Rubio to negotiate with Europeans on Ukraine's security guarantees – NYT
US President Donald Trump has delegated US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to hold talks with European leaders on security guarantees for Ukraine. A meeting with allied national security advisers is scheduled for 21 August.
Source: The New York Times
Details: Reports indicate that Trump has given Rubio a particularly challenging task, negotiating with European leaders on the proposed security guarantees for Ukraine: "It is perhaps the highest-profile role Mr Rubio has taken on."
The New York Times noted that the task will require Rubio to balance Trump's insistence that US troops should not be deployed in Ukraine with the need to reassure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that his country will receive support if Russian leader Vladimir Putin violates any peace agreement and invades again.
Rubio will have to convince European leaders that the unpredictable Trump will honour his commitment to help them protect Ukraine, without doing so under the NATO banner.
The US secretary of state will lead what a senior administration official described as "sensitive diplomatic conversations" with counterparts from Ukraine and other European allies.
A person familiar with the plans reported that national security advisers from these countries plan to meet with Rubio on Thursday 21 August.
A Trump administration official said the talks would determine "what the security guarantees could look like" ahead of a possible Zelenskyy-Putin meeting.
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