U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Friday thatIf no substantial progress occurs, the United States may end its efforts to promote a peaceful settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict "within days."

If the Russian-Ukrainian conflict cannot end, "we should consider letting go." He told reporters before leaving Paris. He had previously held high-level talks with European and Ukrainian officials in Paris. He added:

"We need to make a judgment very quickly now. I'm talking about it within a few days to see if there is hope for this."

Rubio's statement reveals the increasing dissatisfaction within the Trump administration with the delay in stopping the conflict. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been in full swing for three years, and the armistice process has made little progress.

Moscow has been delaying negotiations and has refused to accept the ceasefire agreement proposed by Kyiv. Although U.S. President Trump promised to "end the conflict in one day" during his campaign, he recently stated that "Russia needs to take action."

Although the U.S. State Department said Thursday's talks with Ukrainian and European officials were a "very excellent exchange" and said positive progress has been made in the mineral resource agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine, the prospect of peace remains slim. Meanwhile, a "partial ceasefire agreement" brokered by the United States and targeting energy infrastructure also expired on Thursday. During this period, both parties frequently accused each other of violating the agreement.

According to the meeting summary released by the US State Department, the draft peace plan proposed by the US side received "encouraging feedback" at the Paris talks, but the document did not disclose the specific content of the draft. The summary also said that Rubio had a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and conveyed the same peace framework to him.

Rubio said on Friday that he and his envoy Steve Witkoff came to Paris.It is to "start to explore more specific outlines of the armistice" and to determine whether the conflict is really expected to end.He said

"If there is no hope at all, if the gap between the positions of both sides is too big to reach an agreement, then I think the president will most likely say that we are no longer involved … This is not our conflict, we are not launching it. The United States has been aiding Ukraine for the past three years and we want it to end, but at the end of the day, it is not our conflict."

He also said, "President Trump has been working continuously at the highest level of the administration to end this conflict over the past 87 days. We are now at a turning point and we must judge whether this is expected to be achieved. This is why we need to contact both sides at the same time."

Meanwhile, Russia launched a missile strike on Ukraine in the early hours of Friday, targeting a residential area in Kharkiv. Ukrainian authorities said the attack killed one person and injured 67 people, and others are expected to be trapped under the ruins of the damaged apartment building.

Going further toward the mineral agreement

Rubio’s warning remarks on Friday came as the United States and Ukraine took a step further toward the mineral agreement on Thursday night.

Ukrainian Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko saidKyiv and Washington have signed a memorandum as one of the steps to push the agreement.

"We are pleased to announce the signing of a memorandum of intent with our U.S. partners, which paves the way for the economic partnership agreement and the establishment of the Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund," Sverrigenko wrote on social platform X.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier on Thursday that the memorandum related to the agreement “can be signed online on the same day.”

Sverrigenko also said: "This document is the result of the professional work of the negotiation teams of both sides. They have recently completed a new round of technical negotiations held in Washington. The next step is to finalize the text of the agreement and sign it, and then it will require approval from the parliamentary committees of both countries." She said that although there is still a lot of work to be done, the current speed of progress and the significant progress have been made is enough to make people believe that this document will be of great value to both countries.

Before that, in February this year, Zelensky and Trump had a public dispute over the agreement, which led to the failure to sign the draft agreement at that time.

The person familiar with the matter revealed to the media that details of the agreement have been changing since then. This week, U.S. Treasury officials held intensive consultations with Ukrainian delegation in Washington to try to finalize the final version.