NEW YORK, October 19. /TASS/. Ukraine’s unwillingness to withdraw its troops from the part of Donbass it occupies is the key reason for the conflict’s continuation, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

"Ukraine has said: 'We can’t give up that 11 percent that’s remaining of Donetsk because that defensive line is our last defensible line.' Hence, that is at the core of this conflict. Now there are a lot of other issues going on, but ultimately that is really what they’re fighting over," the top US diplomat said in an interview with Breitbart.

He emphasized that, from Washington’s perspective, the current situation complicates the negotiation process due to the difficulty of finding a compromise among all parties.

"We think this war will ultimately end. But it has not been easy, not for lack of trying, not because [US special presidential envoys] Jared [Kushner] and Steve [Witkoff] and others have invested a lot of time into it, but because the dynamics I just described to you seem deeply entrenched right now. We’re going to keep trying as much as we can to see what we can do," Rubio added.