The “Coalition of the Willing,” a triumvirate of European nations seeking to back Ukraine in ongoing talks with the U.S. and Russia, is meeting virtually on Sunday. (https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/08/trump-putin-trilateral-summit-coalition.jpg)

Rubio denied Russian President Vladimir Putin was “emboldened” by his summit with President Trump last month, despite recent Russian drone incursions in both Poland and Romania.

“This is an example of why this war, the President thinks, needs to end. Wars generally will escalate. They’ll actually get worse, not better,” Rubio told Fox News. “Understand that these drone operations are far from the front lines. They have no impact on the front lines. They’re designed largely to weaken one another, and Ukraine is conducting strikes in Russia as well, and it’s one of the reasons why the President has said he wants this war to end.”

Rubio also took issue with claims the United States “put a bounty” on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s head after announcing last month a $50 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro leads the celebration of the 22nd anniversary of late President Hugo Chavez’s return to power after a failed coup attempt in 2002, in Caracas, Venezuela April 13, 2024. (Reuters/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/File Photo)

“Nicolas Maduro was indicted by the Southern District of New York. A grand jury returned an indictment. They read the evidence, they saw the evidence, they returned an indictment, not just against him personally, but against a network of people in that country who use the apparatus of what they claim to be of government to conduct drug trafficking operations against the United States,” Rubio said.

“He’s not the president of Venezuela, that’s the title he’s given himself,” he added. “What he is, is someone who’s empowered himself of some of the instruments of government, and they’re using that to operate a drug cartel from Venezuelan territory,” he added.

“When you traffic drugs into the United States, you’re meddling into the internal affairs of America, when you are pushing drugs towards the United States of America, you are a direct threat to the national security and the national interest of the United States. And that’s what we’re addressing here.”