The war in Ukraine must end: Ukraine and the US should be prepared for concessions.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said it’s “unrealistic to believe” that Ukraine can push Russian forces back to where they were before the 2022 invasion and that the official US position should be that the war must end.

“It’s unrealistic to believe that somehow, a nation the size of Ukraine, no matter how incompetent and no matter how much damage the Russian Federation has suffered as a result of this invasion, there’s no way Ukraine is going to push these people back to where they were on the eve of the invasion, just given the size dynamic,” said Rubio.

“The problem that Ukraine is facing is not that they’re running out of money; it’s that they’re running out of Ukrainians”, Rubio said.

At the same time, Rubio said that he wanted to ensure Ukraine had leverage in negotiations but that Ukraine and the US would have to make concessions to Russia.

“There will have to be concessions made by Russia as well, but also by the Ukrainians and the US,” Rubio said.