WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio faced four different congressional panels this week to discuss Washington’s role in various global conflicts, but the war in Ukraine barely came up.

With the Trump administration consumed by the crisis in Iran, Ukraine has largely dropped off the radar, despite increasingly deadly attacks from Russia.

Speaking in Kyiv a day after 23 people were killed across Ukraine in the latest massive Russian aerial assault, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday lamented dwindling US attention.

“Today we are not in focus,” Zelensky said alongside visiting NATO chief Mark Rutte. “Iran is the number one issue for the United States of America, and then comes the issue of Ukraine. Unfortunately, we are in the queue of these wars.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered the same observation Thursday, telling foreign journalists in Saint Petersburg: “We can all see and understand that the US administration is being forced to shift its attention and deal with this issue above all others.”

‘No military solution’

US President Donald Trump won the 2024 US election on a promise to quickly end the war in Ukraine.

He invested months in shuttle diplomacy, putting pressure on Kyiv to make concessions and hosting Putin to try to nudge him towards a peace deal.

But the effort has produced only several short-lived ceasefires and prisoner exchanges, with Moscow and Kyiv remaining far apart on the issues of territory, security guarantees and sanctions relief.

When pressed to address the Ukraine conflict during about 10 hours of congressional testimony, Rubio conceded that US-led negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv had reached a stalemate.

“Unfortunately… neither side........

© The Times of Israel