US And Russian Foreign Ministers To Meet At ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting

JAKARTA - United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Thursday, a senior US State Department official said.

During her first visit to Southeast Asia since taking office, Foreign Minister Rubio was in Kuala Lumpur to meet with 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and senior Malaysian government officials.

The trip is part of an effort to renew the US focus on the Indo-Pacific, seeing beyond the conflict in the Middle East and Europe that has garnered a lot of attention from the Trump Administration, with Rubio balancing dual responsibility as foreign minister and national security adviser.

"I can confirm: such a meeting is being planned," TASS reported, citing a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova Thursday.

This will be a face-to-face meeting between the two main diplomats of each country, as US President Donald Trump is increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the protracted war in Ukraine.

Earlier, the two foreign ministers met in Saudi Arabia in February as part of President Trump's administration's efforts to rebuild bilateral relations and help negotiations end the war.

President Trump, who returned to power this year by promising a swift end to the war that began in 2022, has taken a softer tone towards Moscow, in contrast to the strong support of his predecessor, Joe Biden, for Kyiv.

But on Tuesday, a day after Trump approved the delivery of US defense weapons to Ukraine, he made an unusual direct criticism of President Putin, saying the Kremlin Leader's remarks about the move towards peace was "significant".

President Trump also said he was considering supporting a bill that would impose severe sanctions on Russia, including a 500 percent tariff for countries buying oil, gas, uranium, and other exports from Russia.

When asked on Wednesday about President Trump's criticism of President Putin, the Kremlin said Moscow was "calm" in response to the criticism and would continue to seek to improve its "damped" US-Russian relations.