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Ex-Ambassador Bridget Brink says decision to resign “wasn’t a hard, a hasty, rash decision”
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Rubio says U.S. will find out if Russia is
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on the phone Saturday with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to get a readout on the latest talks, as the U.S. tries to determine whether Russia is “tapping us along” in efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
“We talked about a variety of things,” Rubio told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” in an interview airing Sunday. “I wanted to get his readout on his view of how the talks went yesterday. They were not a complete waste of time.”
The phone call between the countries’ top diplomats occurred a day after Moscow and Kyiv held the first direct talks in three years. Russian President Vladimir Putin spurned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to meet face-to-face in Turkey after he proposed direct negotiations and instead sent a lower-level delegation.
The talks in Istanbul Friday broke up after fewer than two hours without a ceasefire, although both sides agreed on exchanging 1,000 prisoners of war each.
The United States — along with its European allies — have been pushing Russia and Ukraine for an end to the three-year war. President Trump, who has expressed frustration with the stalled talks and threatened to stiffen American sanctions unless progress is made toward a peace deal, said Saturday he will be speaking with Putin by phone Monday. That call will be followed by one with Zelenskyy, Mr. Trump said.
“Are they tapping us along? Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out,” Rubio told Brennan when asked if Russia and Ukraine are seeking to talk to “buy time.” “We’ll find out pretty soon.”
He added, “On the one hand, we’re trying to achieve peace and end a very bloody, costly and destructive war. So, there’s some element of patience that is required. On the other hand, we don’t have time to waste. There are a lot of other things happening in the world that we also need to be paying attention to.”
The secretary of state said he believes the only way that these talks will move forward is if Mr. Trump and Putin meet in person. He said Mr. Trump has publicly offered to meet one-on-one.
“The mechanics of setting that kind of meeting up would require a little bit of work, so I can’t say that’s being planned as we speak in terms of picking a site and a date,” Rubio said. “But the president wants to do it. He wants to do it as soon as feasible.”
The Vatican has made a “very generous offer” to host any peace talks. Rubio, who is in Rome to attend the Mass for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV Sunday, said the Vatican would be a place that “all parties would feel comfortable.”
Leo, who was elected as the first U.S.-born pope on May 8, took up Pope Francis’ call for peace in Ukraine in his first Sunday noon blessing as pope. He appealed for all sides to do whatever possible to reach “an authentic, just and lasting peace.”
Russian drone strikes continue in Ukraine as Vatican renews offer for help
Russian drone strikes continued in Ukraine, killing nine people, officials said, as the Vatican renewed its offer to help the two sides in efforts to reach a peace agreement.
The strikes – and renewed offer from the Vatican – come hours after Moscow and Kyiv had held their first direct peace talks in years that failed to yield a ceasefire. Russian and Ukrainian officials met Friday in Istanbul in an attempt to reach a temporary ceasefire, but the talks ended after less than two hours without a breakthrough – as they remained far apart on key conditions for ending the fighting and Putin was a no-show.
President Trump said on social media Saturday that he plans to speak to Putin on Monday. “The subjects of the call will be, stopping the ‘bloodbath” that is killing, on average, more than 5000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, and trade,” Mr. Trump wrote in all capital letters, adding he would speak to President Zelenskyy and members of NATO after his call with Putin.
Getty Images
It was the first face-to-face dialogue between the two sides since the early weeks of Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The “bloodbath” continues
Zelenskyy said he had discussed the outcome of the Istanbul talks with U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Poland.
On Saturday, the bloodbath continued, as Ukrainian officials said a Russian drone hit a bus evacuating civilians from a front-line area in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, killing nine people.
Seven people were also injured in the attack in Bilopillia, a town around 6 miles from Russia’s border, three of them seriously, according to local Gov. Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine’s national police. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the report. There was no comment from Moscow.
State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Anadolu via Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “deliberate killing of civilians,” adding in a post on Telegram messaging app that “Russians could scarcely not realize what kind of vehicle they were hitting.”
He lamented the missed opportunity from Friday’s peace talks, saying that “Ukraine has long proposed this – a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives.”
“Russia only retains the ability to continue killing,” Zelenskyy added.
Vatican renews offer to help
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, repeated the Vatican’s offer to serve as a venue for direct talks, saying the failure of negotiations in Istanbul to reach a ceasefire this week was “tragic.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Rome on Saturday and he told reporters before meeting with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Vatican point man on Ukraine, he would be discussing potential ways the Vatican could help.
Asked if the Vatican could be a peace broker, Rubio replied: “I wouldn’t call it broker, but it’s certainly – I think it’s a place that both sides would be comfortable going.”
“So we’ll talk about all of that and obviously always grateful to the Vatican for their willingness to play this constructive and positive role,” said Rubio, who also met Saturday with the Vatican secretary of state and foreign minister.
Maria Grazia Picciarella/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement that Secretary Rubio met with the Cardinal to discuss the urgent need to end the Russia-Ukraine war. “He emphasized the importance of continued collaboration under the new leadership of Pope Leo XIV,” the statement said.
Leo, who was elected history’s first American pope on May 8, took up Francis’ call for peace in Ukraine in his first Sunday noon blessing as pope. He appealed for all sides to do whatever possible to reach “an authentic, just and lasting peace.”
As a bishop in Peru, Leo had called Russia’s war an “imperialist invasion,” vowed this week personally to “make every effort so that this peace may prevail.”
In a speech to eastern rite Catholics, including the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine, Leo begged warring sides to meet and negotiate.
“The Holy See is always ready to help bring enemies together, face to face, to talk to one another, so that peoples everywhere may once more find hope and recover the dignity they deserve, the dignity of peace,” he said.
GOP congressman confirms Hegseth ordered pause in cyber operations against Russia, despite Pentagon denial
Washington — Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said the U.S. government halted cyber operations against Russia for one day in February as President Trump was trying to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, confirming CBS News reporting at the time and undercutting statements of denial from the Defense Department.
“I actually dug into this whole matter. I just want to address it: It was a one-day pause, which is typical for negotiations,” said Bacon, chair of the House Armed Services cyber subcommittee, during a hearing on Capitol Hill on Friday. “That’s just about as much as I can say. It was a one-day pause.”
In March, multiple U.S. officials told CBS News that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had issued a directive to U.S. Cyber Command to pause cyber operations against Russia, including those that were the most provocative. At the time, the duration of the pause was unknown.
In response to reports about the pause, the Pentagon’s rapid response team posted on March 4 on X that Hegseth “has neither canceled nor delayed any cyber operations directed against malicious Russian targets and there has been no stand-down order whatsoever from that priority.”
Two sources familiar with Hegseth’s order said the pause directive lacked specificity. It’s not clear how the order about planning was interpreted. Multiple officials also told CBS News in March that strategizing for future operations was never paused and that U.S. cyber policy on Russia “is very much intact” and remains at the same level, one of the officials said.
Bacon’s remarks are the first on-the-record acknowledgment of the directive’s existence, which was first reported in February by The Record, a cybersecurity news publication.
It’s not uncommon for certain military operations to be paused during sensitive negotiations between countries. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have halted operations to prevent U.S. intentions from being misconstrued and to keep diplomacy on track.
In addition to the Pentagon’s statement on X, the Trump administration stonewalled inquiries on the matter and continued to deny any pause was ordered.
A senior U.S. defense official at the Defense Department declined to answer questions from CBS News at the time when asked about the reported pause.
In Friday’s House hearing, the statement from DOD Rapid Response was called out by Army veteran and Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman, who accused the Pentagon of lying about the pause directive.
“What I would like to do is basically point out that that statement by DOD Rapid Response was an outright lie,” said the Virginia congressman. “It was at least misleading. And that is not what the American people deserve, and that will be something that I intend to follow up with the secretary when he actually shows up.”
The Pentagon created the DOD Rapid Response account in February, and it is overseen by conservative podcaster and Army veteran Graham Allen, who is now the Pentagon’s digital media director.
The account commonly attacks news publications and posts comments criticizing reporting about Hegseth and the Defense Department. The X account has omitted context from its statements, touting an increase in U.S. military recruiting numbers between February 2024 through February 2025, even though much of the period showing improved recruitment numbers occurred during the Biden administration, as CBS News’ Confirmed team found.
Trump administration officials have promised to run “the most transparent Defense Department in history,” but to date, the Pentagon has held just one formal briefing. Instead of regular press engagements, the Pentagon’s modus operandi for official Defense Department communications is often to bypass legacy news media outlets and attack their reporting. Questions to the Pentagon were referred to U.S. Cyber Command, which told CBS News Friday that “due to operational security concerns, we do not comment nor discuss cyber intelligence, plans, or operations.”
contributed to this report.
Putin won’t take peace with Ukraine without restoring empire, former Defense Secretary Gates says
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes it’s his destiny to recreate the Russian empire and won’t back down in Ukraine, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview with “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Gates said Putin’s aims can be unclear, even in one-on-one meetings.
“I’m not sure even in a face to face that you can judge Putin’s intention,” said Gates, who served as defense secretary under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “My own view, having dealt with him and having spent most of my life working on Russia and the Soviet Union, is Putin feels that he has a destiny to recreate the Russian Empire. And as my old mentor, Zbigniew Brzezinski once said, without Ukraine, there can be no Russian Empire.”
While campaigning for a return to the White House, President Trump promised a swift end to the war that began three years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. Now more than 100 days into Mr. Trump’s second term, talks to end the conflict have been inconsistent, with little sign an end to fighting is in sight.
“I think the president is — based on what I read — is getting the sense that, as he put it, that Putin is ‘tapping’ him along and … Putin hasn’t given up on any of his original goals in Ukraine,” Gates said, referring to an April 26 social media post.
In the post, Mr. Trump wrote of Putin, “maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war.”
Gates said Putin hasn’t shown a willingness to make any major concessions.
“He’s going to insist on occupying all four of the eastern provinces of the Donbas, perpetual recognition of Russian ownership of Crimea, a pro-Russian government in Kyiv and a Ukrainian military that looks a lot like an enhanced police force. And no membership in NATO and probably no membership in the EU,” Gates said.
President Trump said Friday he’s moving to set up direct talks with Putin as soon as he can. Talks with lower-level Ukrainian and Russian delegations took place in Istanbul Friday, but there was little concrete progress beyond an agreement to a major prisoner exchange in the coming days.
The conflict in Ukraine dates back to 2014, when Russian forces seized Crimea after protests in Ukraine led to the ousting of the country’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Gates believes Putin wants the Ukraine that existed before that uprising.
“He wants Ukraine, basically, to be a client state of Russia, and I don’t see what it would take to get him to walk away from any of those goals in the foreseeable future,” Gates said. “I mean, when you look at 900,000 or so Russian soldiers that have been killed or wounded, he’s paid a huge price – the Russian economy and so on.”
“It hasn’t deterred him in the slightest,” Gates said.
Trump says he’ll meet with Putin on Ukraine war “as soon as we can,” amid low hopes for Ukraine-Russia talks
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates — President Trump said Friday that he’s moving to set up direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as he can, after Putin opted to skip peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey.
“I think it’s time for us to just do it,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he wrapped a four-day visit to the Middle East. Later, he told reporters on Air Force One, setting off on the journey back to Washington, that he might call Putin soon.
“He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it or maybe not,” Mr. Trump said. “At least we’ll know. And if we don’t solve it, it’ll be very interesting.”
Waleed Zein/Anadolu/Getty
The president reiterated that he wasn’t surprised by Putin’s decision to skip the talks taking place Friday in Turkey. Putin didn’t want to go because he’s not there, Mr. Trump said.
Meetings between Ukrainian and Russian delegations did get underway in Istanbul Friday, but there was little expectation of any breakthrough as Putin sent a lower-level delegation, drawing accusations from Ukraine and its European partners that Moscow wasn’t really interested in a negotiated resolution to the war.
Mr. Trump said he would hold a meeting with Putin, “as soon as we can set it up.”
“I would actually leave here and go,” he said, noting that his daughter Tiffany just gave birth to her first child. “I do want to see my beautiful grandson.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to take part in the talks as Mr. Trump pressed for the leaders to find a solution to the war, ongoing since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But Putin spurned the call to meet face-to-face with Zelenskyy.
Mr. Trump has pressed both sides to quickly come to an agreement to end the war. Zelenskyy has agreed to an American plan for an initial 30-day halt to hostilities, but Russia has not signed on and has continued to strike at targets inside Ukraine.
Oleksandr Oleksiienko/Kordon.Media/Global Images Ukraine/Getty
“He didn’t go, and I understand that,” Mr. Trump said Friday of Putin’s decision to skip the talks in Istanbul. “We’re going to get it done. We got to get it done. Five thousand young people are being killed every single week on average, and we’re going to get it done.”
The U.S. president told reporters on Thursday that a meeting between himself and Putin was crucial to breaking the deadlock.
“I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Mr. Trump said. “But we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.”
Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said any meeting between Putin and Mr. Trump would have to be “well prepared” for, but he said such an encounter was indeed necessary in Russia’s view, as “a serious conversation on international issues is needed, including the Ukrainian crisis.”
Should the talks in Istanbul fail to make any progress, Zelenskyy said Friday that there should be a “strong reaction,” as it would be clear, in his view, that Russia does not have any interest in ending the war.
Putin skips Ukraine talks in Turkey as Russia shirks pressure from Trump, hurls insults at Zelenskyy instead
Istanbul — Russia and Ukraine traded insults on Thursday as negotiators were due, tentatively, to meet in Turkey for the first direct peace talks in more than three years. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed Russia for sending a “decorative” delegation as he touched down in Ankara for a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Russian officials, for their part, called Zelenskyy “pathetic” and a “clown” for challenging President Vladimir Putin to show up in person for the talks, while touting further territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin made it clear on Thursday that President Trump’s push for a ceasefire in the three-year war — a war he repeatedly claimed he could end within hours — was not changing Moscow’s entrenched position on the standoff.
The exchange of personal barbs between Moscow and Kyiv undermined the chances of any breakthrough at the talks in Turkey. It wasn’t even clear if any talks between the warring parties would take place.
Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu/Getty
Putin did not come to Turkey, despite days of international pressure. Instead Russia’s negotiating team, which touched down in Istanbul on Thursday morning, was led by a hardline historian and Kremlin aide who has denied Ukraine’s right to exist.
“We need to understand the level of the Russian delegation and what their mandate is, if they are capable of making any decisions themselves,” Zelenskyy said from the tarmac at Ankara airport. “From what we see, it looks more like a decorative” deployment by Moscow, he added.
President Trump said he was keeping open the possibility of travelling to Turkey on Friday, if there was any meaningful progress in the talks. But the absence of Putin — as well as any top diplomats such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov or foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov — appeared to diminish the talks’ importance, or any possibility of a breakthrough.
Russia said negotiations would take place in the “second half of the day,” but Zelenskyy said he would decide upon his delegation’s approach only after meeting with Erdogan.
Russia hurls insults at Zelenskyy for calling on Putin to negotiate
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova hit back at Zelenskyy’s criticism of Moscow’s delegation almost immediately. Speaking at a briefing in Moscow, she called him a “dummy”, a “clown” and a “loser.”
Lavrov called Zelenskyy “pathetic” for trying to persuade Putin to turn up in person.
“At first Zelenskyy made some kind of statements that demanded Putin come personally. Well, a pathetic person,” he said in a televised address to diplomats in Moscow.
Mr. Trump, who has been pushing for a swift end to the three-year war, said he might go to Turkey if he saw meaningful progress.
“You know, if something happened, I’d go on Friday,” he said during a visit to Qatar on Thursday.
Speaking at a NATO meeting in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was “impatient” and willing to consider “any mechanism” to achieve a lasting end to the war.
Rubio is expected in Istanbul on Friday, “for meetings with European counterparts to discuss the conflict in Ukraine,” according to the US State Department said.
Putin himself made the surprise call for direct negotiations after Kyiv and European leaders pressured him to agree to a full and unconditional 30-day ceasefire — a call he also rejected.
No nearer to a Ukraine-Russia peace deal?
Despite the flurry of diplomacy, Moscow and Kyiv’s positions remain far apart. The Kremlin’s naming of Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline aide to Putin though not a major decision-maker, as its top negotiator suggested Moscow does not plan to make concessions.
Medinsky led failed negotiations in 2022, in which Moscow made sweeping claims to Ukrainian territory and demanded restrictions on Kyiv’s military. He is known for writing ultra-nationalistic school textbooks that question Ukraine’s right to exist and justify the ongoing invasion.
Even as he touched down in Turkey, Russia’s defense ministry claimed in a social media post that troops had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine, Torskoye and Novooleksandrivka in the Donetsk region.
Russia also sent a deputy foreign minister, deputy defense minister and the head of its GRU military intelligence agency to Turkey.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv had sent a top-level delegation.
“Our delegation is at the highest level – the ministry of foreign affairs, the office of the president, the military, our intelligence agencies… in order to make any decisions that can lead to just peace,” he said in Ankara.
Russia insists the talks address what it calls the “root causes” of the conflict, including a “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine. These vague terms that Moscow has used to justify its invasion are widely rejected by Kyiv and the West.
Officials in Moscow have also repeated that Ukraine must cede territory occupied by Russian troops and pull out of some areas still under Ukrainian control.
Kyiv wants an immediate 30-day ceasefire and says it will not recognize its territories as Russian. But Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Ukraine might only get them back through diplomatic means.
Ukraine says Russia attacking with drones despite ceasefire calls; Zelenskyy challenges Putin to meet in Turkey
Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia launched more than 100 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine in nighttime attacks, the Ukrainian air force said Monday, after the Kremlin rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in the war it sparked more than three years ago. There was no response from the Kremlin, meanwhile, to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s challenge for President Vladimir Putin to meet with him for face-to-face peace talks in Turkey this week.
The United States and European governments have made a concerted push to stop the fighting, which has killed tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides as well as more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians. Russia’s invading forces have seized control of around one-fifth of Ukraine.
In a flurry of diplomatic developments over the weekend, Russia shunned the ceasefire proposal tabled by the U.S. and European leaders but offered instead to hold direct talks with Ukraine on Thursday. The Kremlin has not said whether Putin himself is willing to travel to Turkey to engage in those talks.
Ukraine, along with European allies, had demanded Russia accept a ceasefire starting Monday before holding peace talks. Moscow effectively rejected that proposal and instead called for direct negotiations in Istanbul.
President Trump insisted that Ukraine accept the Russian offer. Zelenskyy went a step further and put the pressure on Putin by offering a personal meeting between the leaders.
“Ukraine wants to end this war and is doing everything for this,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram Monday. “We expect appropriate steps from Russia.”
Zelenskyy has first conversation with Pope Leo
The Ukrainian leader said he told Pope Leo XIV about peace efforts during his first phone conversation with the new pontiff.
Ukraine is counting on the Vatican’s help in securing the return of thousands of children that the Kyiv government says have been deported by Russia, Zelenskyy said, adding that he had invited the pope to visit Ukraine.
“Ukraine counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families,” Zelenskyy said of the children in a post on X. “I informed the Pope about the agreement between Ukraine and our partners that, starting today, a full and unconditional ceasefire for at least 30 days must begin. I also reaffirmed Ukraine’s readiness for further negotiations in any format, including direct talks — a position we have repeatedly emphasized. Ukraine wants to end this war and is doing everything to achieve that. We now await similar steps from Russia.”
In his first Sunday noon blessing as pontiff, Leo called for a genuine and just peace in Ukraine.
“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” said the first U.S.-born leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
In 2022, in the war’s early months, Zelenskyy repeatedly called for a personal meeting with the Russian president but was rebuffed, and eventually enacted a decree declaring that holding negotiations with Putin had become impossible.
Putin and Zelenskyy have only met once, in 2019. Mr. Trump says “deep hatred” between the sides has made it difficult to push peace efforts forward.
Pope Leo XIV calls for peace in Ukraine, ceasefire in Gaza in first Sunday address
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