Trump confirms US may stop acting as mediator between Russia and Ukraine

US President Donald Trump has signalled that he may abandon efforts to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine if there is no rapid progress in negotiations. This is reported by Bloomberg.

In particular, Trump said that the US may stop actively participating in attempts to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine if tangible steps towards an agreement are not made soon.

"If for some reason one side makes it difficult for that process, we'll just say, 'You're stupid .... You're terrible people, and we'll just walk away." But hopefully we won't have to do that," Trump told reporters on 18 April.

The American leader said he did not have a "specific number of days" in mind in which he is waiting for an agreement before reconsidering his position. However, he is determined to make rapid progress.

In turn, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the Russian-Ukrainian war has no military solution. In his opinion, neither side has the strategic capabilities to end the war quickly.

We're not going to continue to fly around the world and have meeting after meeting after meeting unless there's some kind of progress. So if the parties are serious about peace - one side or both sides - we want to help. If that doesn't happen, we'll just move on. We'll move on to other issues that are just as important, sometimes even more important to the United States in a sense," he said.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin reacted to information about a possible U.S. withdrawal from the peace process.

We believe that some progress can already be recorded - progress related to the temporary moratorium that Russia adhered to with regard to strikes on energy infrastructure. So there are already some developments, but there are still a lot of difficult discussions ahead," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Officially, Moscow says it seeks peace, but on its own terms, which include not only Ukraine's renunciation of occupied Crimea and four regions, but also its refusal to join NATO and probably other concessions.