Posted originally on CTH on March 11, 2025 | Sundance

The information from Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks good.  During his flight to Saudi Arabia, Secretary Rubio answered a few questions about the U.S. delegation expectations of the meeting with Ukraine officials.

Rubio notes the aforementioned “minerals deal” is not an important part of the larger objective.  Secretary Rubio says that finding out if Ukraine’s desire for peace with Russia is true, in good faith or not, is the key objective.  A pragmatic Rubio also notes that Ukraine is likely going to have to give up lost territory to achieve peace.

FOX NEWS – […] “”The minerals deal is on the table that’s continuing to be worked on – it’s not part of this conversation, per se,” he said, noting that Tuesday’s meeting in Jeddah can be considered successful even without securing such an agreement.

[…] “The important point in this meeting is to establish clearly their intentions, their desire, as they’ve said publicly now, numerous times, to reach a point where peace is possible,” Rubio said, adding that he will need to be assured that Kyiv is prepared to make some hard decisions, like giving up territory seized by Russia, in order to end the three-year war. 

“Both sides need to come to an understanding,” he said. “The Russians can’t conquer all of Ukraine, and obviously it will be very difficult for Ukraine, in any reasonable time period, to sort of force the Russians back all the way to where they were in 2014. So the only solution to this war is diplomacy and getting them to a table where that’s possible.

 “Then we’ll have to determine how far they are from the Russian position, which we don’t know yet either. And then once you understand where both sides truly are, it gives you a sense of how big the divide is and how hard it’s going to be,” Rubio explained. “I’m hoping it’ll be a positive interaction along those lines.” (more)

Rubio also seems to indicate that if the U.S delegation senses this is all just lies and disinformation from the Ukraine side, then President Trump’s approach to providing financial support will moderate accordingly.  “The pause in aid broadly is something I hope we can resolve,” Rubio said. “I think what happens tomorrow will be key to that.”

Secretary Marco Rubio continues to surprise us in the way he has totally stopped pretending about geopolitical matters.  There is no sunlight between the continually expressed and defined positions of Marco Rubio and the identical positions, perspectives and policies expressed by President Trump.

This is quite a remarkable change in Rubio’s political persona.  Is it real?