The United States will not ease sanctions against Russia or enter into any bilateral agreements with it until a ceasefire is reached in Ukraine. This was stated by U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce during a briefing.

"There will be no negotiations, no decisions, no agreements until this bloodshed stops," Bruce told reporters.

The head of the State Department’s press service also noted that the Russian missile strike on Sumy, which killed 35 people, raised further questions about "who truly wants peace and a ceasefire." Bruce called the war in Ukraine a “meat grinder” in which “nothing has changed.”

On April 15, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Biden’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, advised Donald Trump to take a more cautious approach toward the "diplomatic intentions" of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Rubio and Kellogg recommended that the head of the White House act carefully in dealings with Putin and pursue a tougher stance, especially regarding Moscow’s demands for territorial concessions from Kyiv, according to the WSJ.