MADRID, October 8. /TASS/. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the fighting in Ukraine could escalate into a "far more dangerous" regional conflict.

"This is a very dangerous war. It's an extremely dangerous war because, frankly, right now it seems to be at a stalemate, and stalemates are very dangerous because stalemates only end one of two ways," he said at a news conference during his visit to Lisbon.

"Number one, you have a negotiated settlement, one in which each side has to give up something in order to get peace <...>. The other way that stalemates end is through escalation. One side or the other, or both, escalate what they are doing in order to try to break the other side and break the stalemate, and that's very dangerous," Rubio said.

He warned that escalation could "turn what is a war between two countries into a much broader and far more dangerous regional conflict." Rubio added that Washington would continue working to facilitate a negotiated settlement and end the conflict.