Rubio and Lavrov Meet in Manila to Seek New Peace Ideas

For Serbia, which has spent years maintaining a fragile balance between its European path and its traditional ties with Moscow, any hint of talks on peace in Ukraine carries concrete weight: the direction of the sanctions regime shapes both energy prices and the room Belgrade has for its own foreign policy. That is why the meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, held on July 23 on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila, deserves closer reading here than the distance to the Philippine capital might suggest.

This was the first encounter between the two chief diplomats at that level explicitly dedicated to the war in Ukraine. It took place on the margins of a regional forum, at a moment when the diplomatic channel between Washington and Moscow has opened and closed repeatedly in recent months without any tangible shift on the front. After the talks, Rubio said something he had previously avoided stating so plainly: that new ideas are required, because the proposals put forward so far, both American and Russian, have been unacceptable to the other side.

A Meeting Belgrade Is Watching Closely

Unlike earlier contacts, which amounted to messages passed through intermediaries, the Manila meeting was face to face and came at a point when it is clear that none of the peace frameworks tried so far has held. Rubio’s formulation that fresh proposals are needed is in fact an admission of geopolitical reality: the positions of Kyiv and Moscow remain irreconcilable on territory and security guarantees, and Washington is searching for an exit that would not look like a capitulation for either side.

Belgrade follows such moments with particular attention. Every move closer or further apart on the Washington-Moscow line also changes the context in which Serbia pursues its policy of military neutrality and declines to join sanctions against Russia. Should the Manila talks lead even to a technical ceasefire, pressure on states that have not aligned their foreign policy with the European Union could ease. Should the negotiations fail, the sanctions regime hardens further and the space for balancing narrows.

Does Manila Signal a Turn?

The signals from the ground, however, counsel caution. While the diplomats shook hands in Manila, the exchange of strikes did not stop: Ukrainian and Russian attacks killed four people on each side, including in Crimea, and a Russian drone hit a petrol station in Sumy, in north-eastern Ukraine. That picture, in which peace is sought at the negotiating table while war continues a thousand kilometres away, is typical of a phase of conflict in which neither side yet believes a truce would pay off more than continued fighting.

It remains open whether Manila is simply another in a series of contacts with no follow-up, or the first point of a wider diplomatic process. A single meeting on the margins of an Asian summit does not make peace, but an open acknowledgement that the existing proposals are not working at least nudges the debate off dead centre. The next test will be whether a concrete proposal stands behind Rubio’s words, or merely a wish to keep the conversation alive.

Do you think talks between the chief diplomats of two great powers can bring the war in Ukraine closer to an end, or is Manila only a diplomatic gesture without substance?