By Daphne Psaledakis
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, a senior U.S. State Department official said.
It would be the second in-person meeting between Rubio and Lavrov, and comes at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin as the war in Ukraine drags on.
The first meeting between the top diplomats took place in Saudi Arabia in February as part of the Trump administration’s effort to re-establish bilateral relations and help negotiate an end to the war.
Trump, who returned to power this year promising a swift end to the war that began in 2022, had taken a more conciliatory tone toward Moscow in a departure from predecessor Joe Biden’s staunch support for Kyiv.
But on Tuesday, a day after Trump approved sending U.S. defensive weapons to Ukraine, he aimed unusually direct criticism at Putin, saying the Kremlin leader’s statements on moving towards peace were “meaningless”.
Trump has also said he was considering supporting a bill that would impose steep sanctions on Russia, including 500% tariffs on nations that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports.
When asked on Wednesday about Trump’s criticism of Putin, the Kremlin said Moscow was “calm” regarding the criticism and that it would continue to try to fix a “broken” U.S.-Russia relationship.
At a conference of Ukraine-friendly nations in Rome on Wednesday, Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in what Kyiv described as a “substantive” conversation.
Russia targeted Ukraine with a record 728 drones early on Wednesday, the latest attack in a series of escalating air assaults in recent weeks that have involved hundreds of drones in addition to ballistic missiles, straining Ukrainian air defences at a perilous moment in the war.
In his first visit to Asia since taking office, Rubio is in Kuala Lumpur to meet with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and with senior Malaysian government officials.
The trip is part of an effort to renew U.S. focus on the Indo-Pacific and look beyond the conflicts in the Middle East and Europe that have consumed much of the Trump administration’s attention, with Rubio balancing dual responsibilities as secretary of state and national security adviser.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Writing by Ismail Shakil; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Michael Perry)
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