WASHINGTON, May 20. /TASS/. If it becomes clear to the US administration that Moscow is not interested in peace, it will not hesitate to toughen sanctions against Russia and increase military assistance to Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"It may come to that point if, in fact, it is clear that the Russians are not interested in the peace deal and they just want to keep fighting a war, it may very well come to that point. The president has made that in the past, our belief, the president's belief is, he doesn't. He believes that right now, if you start threatening sanctions, the Russians will stop talking. And there's value in us being able to talk to them and drive them to get to the table," Rubio said.
Commenting on the US Congress' potential consideration of a bill to tighten sanctions against the Russian Federation, the Secretary of State noted that the American administration "cannot control the Congress. We’ve told the Russians this. Not now, six-eight weeks ago," Rubio said, explaining that all the restrictions slapped on Russia by the previous administration "remain in place. The president understands fully the options that are available to him, some of which are represented in a bill before the Senate," Rubio said.
Reuters news agency previously reported that some American lawmakers had stepped up calls for tougher sanctions against Moscow amid the notion that "little progress in the ceasefire talks" had been made in Istanbul. According to the agency, 73 out of 100 senators support the bill tightening restrictions. Reuters says that to date, lawmakers have not named a date for a possible vote.
The bill, which introduces primary and secondary sanctions against Russia and its trading partners if it rejects Washington's proposed ideas for resolving the conflict in Ukraine, was presented in early April by 50 senators from both parties. They proposed, in particular, to impose import duties of 500% on goods from the countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other goods.