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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a meeting with European leaders on the war in Ukraine, a move seen by European capitals as a sign of Washington’s declining interest in engaging them in its efforts to resolve the conflict.
Rubio was scheduled to attend a meeting in Munich on Friday afternoon with leaders of countries including Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission, but canceled at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict.
“Given the number of meetings taking place at the same time, the Secretary will not participate in the Berlin-format meeting on Ukraine,” a US official said. “He is discussing Russia-Ukraine in many of his meetings here in Munich.”
A European official said the cancellation was “madness”. It comes as the Trump administration continues to distance itself from its European allies and tries to push Ukraine toward a deal with Russia to end the nearly four-year war.
A second European official told the FT that there was no substance to the meeting without US participation.
After Munich, Rubio will travel to Budapest to meet with Hungary’s powerful Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the EU’s most pro-Russian leader, who has blocked efforts to deepen support for Kiev.
A senior State Department official said the visit to Hungary was aimed at further “strengthening” relations with a European country that, in contrast to the EU mainstream, shares the Trump administration’s approach to peace in Ukraine.
Rubio is set to address the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning, which has for years served as an annual barometer of the state of the transatlantic alliance.
Weeks after threatening to invade Greenland — and then walking back that threat — European officials are nervously awaiting the address for signals on President Donald Trump’s evolving stance toward America’s historic allies.
US Democratic senator Peter Welch told the FT, “This is confirming our allies’ worst fears. They are on their own… They are reluctantly acknowledging that when Trump says Europe is on its own, he means it.”
“People here are having a very hard time believing that the country that played a role in liberating Europe and creating the Marshall Plan and the alliance is turning its back. And doing so by accommodating Russia.”
