On 12 June 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a formal message congratulating the Russian people on Russia Day, which coincided with Kyiv’s announcement that Russian troop losses in Ukraine have surpassed one million.

Rubio’s greetings

The message, published on the official website of the US Department of State, reads:

“On behalf of the American people, I want to congratulate the Russian people on Russia Day.”

Rubio further stated that “the United States remains committed to supporting the Russian people as they continue to build on their aspirations for a brighter future.”

He also emphasized a desire for “constructive engagement with the Russian Federation to bring about a durable peace between Russia and Ukraine. It is our hope that peace will foster more mutually beneficial relations between our countries.”

The Russia Day holiday, marked annually on 12 June, commemorates Russia’s 1990 declaration of sovereignty.

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Russian losses

On the same day, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that Russian military personnel losses in Ukraine have exceeded one million:

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Trump’s diplomatic shift and warming ties with Moscow

Reuters also reported that Moscow’s new ambassador to the US, Aleksandr Darchiev, formally presented his credentials to President Donald Trump on the same day. Darchiev pledged to work toward the full restoration of US-Russian diplomatic ties.

The development signals improving relations between the two countries under the Trump administration, despite Russia has only been escalating its war of aggression in Ukraine.

While US President Donald Trump has been pushing for Kyiv-Moscow peace talks for months, his efforts have predictably gone nowhere, as Russia’s unchanged maximalist demands — amounting to Ukraine’s capitulation — leave no real path to peace.

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Strong Russian public support for war

The latest data from the Levada Center from May show that around 75% of Russians continue to support their government’s war against Ukraine. The support has not changed since last November.

A Trump official who dismantled a counter-disinformation office in the United States government has links to the Kremlin, the Telegraph reported on June 3.

Darren Beattie, who was appointed to the State Department in February 2025 as under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, has come under scrutiny for his pro-Russian views. According to the Telegraph, Beattie is married to a Russian woman with links to the Kremlin.

His wife – Yulia Kirillova – is the niece of Sergei Chernikov, a former Russian official who reportedly helped Russian President Vladimir Putin in the election campaign which first brought him to power in 2000.

Beattie notably played a role in dismantling the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, or R/FIMI, which was previously tasked with tracking and countering disinformation from Russia, China, and Iran.

R/FIMI was officially shut down in April 2025, according to a press statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who claimed that the office "spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving."

According to sources cited by the Telegraph, Beattie relentlessly pursued R/FIMI after his appointment to the State Department. Secretary Rubio confirmed that Beattie played a significant role in dismantling the agency.

Beattie also showed a keen interest in classified materials related to Russia, raising concerns about granting him access to sensitive information. The sources also expressed concerns about whether he had been adequately vetted – a process that can take anywhere from a couple of months to over a year to complete.

Beattie previously served in the first Trump administration but was ousted after allegedly attending a white nationalist conference in 2018. Since then, he reinvented himself as an "alt-right media" figure and founded the news outlet Revolver.

Through Revolver, Beattie has long criticized R/FIMI and promoted narratives aligned with Kremlin disinformation. He has argued that the U.S. orchestrates "color revolutions" around the world, including in Ukraine – a common narrative used in Kremlin propaganda to delegitimize pro-democracy movements as Western-backed coups.

Beattie has also written social media posts suggesting that Western institutions should be "infiltrated" by the Kremlin, and has attacked the so-called "globalist American empire."

Two months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Beattie wrote on X: "Imagine the whining from the Globalist American Empire if Putin 'invades' Ukraine... love it when our national security bureaucrats fail!"

The Trump administration has repeatedly come under fire for its perceived sympathies toward Russia. It has also been criticized for shuttering R/FIMI, particularly amidst a global "information war."

According to the National Endowment for Democracy, Russia spends an estimated $1.5 billion annually on disinformation and foreign influence campaigns. In Europe alone, the Kremlin is believed to be behind 80% of disinformation operations.

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“There’s many members of Congress that want us to sanction Russia as strongly as we can,” U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said. “And I’m an advocate of that.”

The Kyiv IndependentKateryna Denisova

U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce advised Russia to focus less on President Donald Trump’s social media posts and more on ending its war against Ukraine.

"If the Russians cared about the nature of how [peace efforts are] proceeding, they would be thinking less about [the president’s statements] and more about what they could do – which is in their hands – to stop the carnage and the slaughter that’s happening right now," Bruce said during a May 27 press briefing.

Bruce's comments refer to Trump's recent posts on Truth Social, in which he reacted to Russia's weekend bombardment of Ukraine that killed at least 12 people. Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin "crazy" and warned him that he was "playing with fire."

The Kremlin dismissed the remarks, calling Trump's statements the result of "emotional overload."

Bruce added that Trump's posts were a "clear and completely transparent" statement regarding his opinion of Russia's attacks on Ukraine, and she encouraged Russia to take him seriously.

Over the weekend, Russia launched the largest aerial assault on Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war in 2022, firing more than 600 drones and dozens of missiles across Ukraine. On May 26 alone, Russia reportedly launched 355 Shahed-type attack drones and decoys –  the largest drone attack of the war.

Despite Trump's public criticism of Putin, there have been no concrete policy changes with regard to applying more pressure on Russia. Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers have called for tougher action on Russia and are prepared to pass a a bipartisan, "bone-crushing" sanctions bill that has yet to be endorsed by Trump.

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Trump’s comments come amid growing pressure on the U.S. administration to respond to escalating Russian attacks.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy