Rubio Says Any Ukraine Security Guarantees Must Be Acceptable to Russia
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on November 9 that any post-war security guarantees for Ukraine must be acceptable to Russia. He spoke before US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi, as Kyiv warned of new Russian strikes on its food industry.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on November 9 that any post-war security guarantees for Ukraine would have to be acceptable to Russia, calling them essential to ending the Ukraine war through a negotiated settlement. He spoke to reporters before US-mediated peace talks in Abu Dhabi.
Asked whether Washington was weighing NATO-style guarantees for Kyiv, Rubio said no final plan exists. "I don't think we've settled on a final concrete plan on that, what it looked like," he said.
He said concepts have been discussed. The topic stays in the headlines, he added, because it is key to ending the war: Ukraine must feel secure afterward. "And obviously, it has to be something that Russia agrees to as well in order for it to work," Rubio said.
Treaty not ruled out
Rubio repeated that guarantees would be critical for Kyiv to accept any peace deal. Asked whether the United States could formalize them in a treaty, he did not rule it out.
"I mean, potentially, but I don't know if that's, we've discussed it at that level of detail yet," he said. He pointed to the difficulty of winning Senate approval for treaties.
The Abu Dhabi talks were scheduled for November 10 and 11. The Kremlin has said it will send senior diplomats and military officials.
Kyiv warns of food-industry strikes
Russia is preparing strikes on food industry sites across Ukraine, a source in Ukraine's military intelligence service (HUR) said. Targets would include grain elevators and warehouses, vegetable oil plants, dairy plants, meat processing plants and poultry farms, and would hit Ukrainian-owned and foreign-owned businesses alike.
The source said Moscow wants to damage Ukraine's economy and cut its foreign currency earnings from agricultural exports. It would also raise Russia's share of global farm exports, particularly to Africa, the Middle East and Asia. An information campaign meant to demoralize Ukrainians would accompany the strikes, the source said.
Russia has hit food supply chains before. In August, strikes on distribution centers of supermarket chains including Silpo and Novus left some Kyiv stores short of vegetables, dairy and meat.
On the front, Russian forces are using guided aerial bombs against bridges and dams to impose a logistical blockade on Zaporizhzhia, said Yevhen Lasiychuk, commander of Ukraine's 7th Air Assault Corps, in an interview published on November 10. That could open the way toward Dnipro, he said. The threat is developing along two axes: the Orikhiv direction from the south and the Huliaipole direction from the east.
Australian fighter feared dead
An Australian who joined Russia's army is missing and feared dead, according to his mother. Daryl Fladung, a 38-year-old security guard from Queensland, went to Moscow in April and signed a Russian army contract on April 29, according to a military document seen by reporters.
His mother said she has not heard from him since late June. Unconfirmed online reports say a drone strike killed him; that has not been verified. Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to say whether it has information about his disappearance.
"I think he's an idiot for doing it. But there's nothing I can do about it," she said. "I just want to know if my son's alive."
