US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked him in a phone call on Monday, May 25, to convey a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to US President Donald Trump regarding planned strikes on Kyiv.

Axar.az reports that Rubio said he and Lavrov also discussed Russia’s warning urging foreign diplomatic staff to leave Kyiv ahead of potential new attacks.

He noted that similar alerts had been sent to all embassies, not only the United States, and that Lavrov personally called him to deliver Putin’s message directly to Trump.

"Putin wanted – had asked him to call me to relay the message directly to the president, which I did, but obviously we had already seen the notice sent out to all the diplomatic facilities," Rubio said.