Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rubio meet in the Philippines, discuss war in Ukraine

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila, the Philippines, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

The talks lasted 35 minutes, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the two men held “a detailed exchange of views on a wide range of bilateral and international issues.” Discussing the war in Ukraine, Lavrov briefed Rubio on “the real situation on the line of contact” and stressed “the unacceptability of continuing to pump the Kyiv regime with weapons.” He also reaffirmed “Russia’s readiness for a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict” and “its commitment to the proposals” the American side had put forward at the Anchorage summit.

Ahead of the meeting, Rubio told reporters the war between Russia and Ukraine would be among the topics discussed. He said the United States remained ready to play a role in ending the conflict “if that opportunity presents itself.”

Rubio said the diplomatic effort had “kind of fallen off a little bit over the last few months” but added that the meeting would show whether negotiations could resume.

Lavrov also said he intended to raise the war between Russia and Ukraine with Rubio, noting that the U.S. secretary of state had recently “commented on the outcome of the Anchorage summit in a rather ambiguous way.”

This is the fourth meeting between Lavrov and Rubio since 2025: they previously met in Riyadh, Kuala Lumpur, and New York.

According to Bloomberg, Russia no longer plans to return part of the occupied territories to Ukraine as part of a possible deal to end the war. The outlet’s sources noted that Vladimir Putin has abandoned any territorial concessions because the Kremlin now considers the informal agreements reached during the summit between the Russian and U.S. presidents in Anchorage in August 2025 to be void.

In June, Marco Rubio said that only proposals to end Russia’s war with Ukraine were discussed during the Alaska summit, but no agreements were reached. Putin, for his part, has said that Anchorage involved discussion of compromises and certain possibilities, but that “there were no agreements.”