Rubio and Lavrov Talk 35 Minutes in Manila, No Breakthrough

For Belgrade, which for a second year is balancing between Brussels pressure to join the sanctions regime and its historical ties to Moscow, every meeting between a US and a Russian diplomat carries concrete weight: as long as a diplomatic channel exists, Serbia’s position between the two sides remains defensible. The Manila encounter showed, however, that the channel is open but that nothing is passing through it for now. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke for about 35 minutes on the margins of the foreign ministers’ meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, without a single step toward a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Both delegations later called the conversation honest, which in diplomatic language is a polite way of saying there was no real convergence. Rubio underlined that the main obstacle remains finding terms acceptable to both sides, a phrase that after nearly three and a half years of war sounds almost like an admission that the negotiations are going in circles. Neither Washington nor Moscow put forward, after Manila, any new element that would justify optimism.

Why does the Anchorage plan keep failing?

The heart of the disagreement lies in the framework Lavrov again placed on the table. Moscow, the Russian minister said, stands by the proposals shaped at the meeting of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August last year. That gathering was billed at the time as a potential turning point, but the details of the understanding were left vague, and months later it became clear that what the Kremlin read as a basis for a settlement, Washington cannot sell to Kyiv or to its European partners.

Rubio rejected precisely that framework as unacceptable for Ukraine. This is the point where the transatlantic bond and Russian calculation clash most sharply: what Moscow presents as a generous offer, Kyiv reads as capitulation under another name. Anchorage has therefore turned, instead of into the foundation of a peace process, into a symbol of its stalemate. Repeating the same proposal in Manila was not an attempt at compromise but confirmation that neither side is ready to step back first.

What this deadlock means for the region

For Serbian and wider Balkan readers, the message from Manila is not encouraging. A prolonged war means prolonged sanctions, continued energy uncertainty and further pressure on all countries that, like Serbia, are trying to keep ties with both sides. Belgrade’s European perspective still requires alignment with the Union’s foreign policy, and every month without a truce widens the gap between that obligation and an economic reality anchored in the Russian market and energy supplies.

The geopolitical reality after Manila is clear: there is a form of dialogue, but no substance. Thirty-five minutes on the sidelines of an Asian summit were not enough even to narrow positions on the most basic question, the terms under which both sides would sit down at the table. The next window for a meeting will depend on the political calendar in Washington and on whether the Kremlin comes forward with a new proposal rather than an old one.

If even the highest diplomatic level of the two powers cannot move beyond polite phrases, how much longer can the countries between them, Serbia among them, keep postponing a clear choice of side?