Manila, Philippines - Secretary of State Marco Rubio was warned against arms sales to Ukraine during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila.
Russia warned the US on Thursday against making "unacceptable" arms deliveries to Ukraine, the Russian foreign ministry announced in a statement.
Lavrov "stressed that it was unacceptable to continue supplying weapons to the Kyiv regime" during a meeting with Rubio in Manila amid this year's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers' summit.
Lavrov condemned "a destabilizing policy by European countries, which are still seeking to inflict a 'strategic defeat' on Russia." He repeated that the Russian side was ready for a "political-diplomatic resolution to the conflict."
The meeting was the first between Lavrov and Rubio since September 2025, and comes at a time when Washington's focus has switched from mediating in Ukraine to dealing with its own war with Iran.
The State Department said the two discussed the "US-Russia relationship and the need to end the Russia-Ukraine war" during the meeting, without providing further details. Neither leader made a spoken statement to the press.
The sit-down came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had spoken with US envoys in a bid to revive stalled talks.
President Donald Trump has voiced support for Ukraine's campaign of long-range drone strikes targeting Russian energy infrastructure, saying it could "help bring about an end" to the conflict.
Ukraine has been escalating its drone strikes, targeting refineries, oil depots and cargo ships at sea, which has caused fuel shortages in Russia.
Rubio's brief meeting with Lavrov comes after he met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday.
The two leaders used the opportunity to lay out crucial groundwork for Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington in September.