Top US and Russian diplomats will meet in Saudi Arabia Tuesday for talks aimed at ending the Ukraine war — in a meeting Kyiv was not invited to and as Europe reels from Washington’s dramatic change in policy towards Moscow.
It will be the first meeting between senior representatives of both countries since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
US President Donald Trump is pushing for a swift resolution to the three-year conflict, though has not yet outlined a plan to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv “did not know anything about” the upcoming talks in Riyadh, according to Ukrainian news agencies, and that it “cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us.”
Moscow said ahead of the meeting that Trump and Vladimir Putin wanted to move on from “abnormal relations” between their countries during the Ukraine war and that it saw no place for Europeans to be at any negotiating table.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, a senior Putin aide, will represent Moscow at the discussions, which will also discuss the possibilities for a summit between presidents Trump and Putin, the Kremlin said Monday.
From the US side, Secretary of State Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will be in Riyadh.
Moscow said the talks would be “primarily devoted to restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations.”
– Possible Trump-Putin summit –
The two sides would also discuss “possible negotiations on a Ukrainian resolution, and organising a meeting between the two presidents,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Moscow has made clear it wants to hold bilateral talks with the United States on a plethora of broad security issues, rather than just talks over a possible Ukraine ceasefire.
Russia has repeatedly blasted NATO’s presence in central and eastern Europe and before it launched its full-scale military offensive was demanding the military alliance pull its troops, equipment and bases out of several eastern members that were under Moscow’s sphere of influence during the Cold War.
The prospects of any talks leading to an agreement to halt the Ukraine fighting are unclear.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have ruled out territorial concessions and Putin last year demanded Ukraine withdraw its troops from even more territory across its east and south as a precondition for opening talks.
– Zelensky Saudi visit –
Zelensky will travel to Saudi Arabia a day later for a “long-planed” visit, though has said he does not plan to hold talks with either the US or Russian officials, his spokesman said Monday.
He said last week he was prepared to meet Putin directly, but only after Kyiv and its allies had developed a common position on a roadmap to end the war.
Ahead of his visit to Riyadh, Russia’s Lavrov said Moscow was not prepared to cede land and said he saw no point in other European countries taking part in talks.
“I don’t know what they would do at the negotiating table… if they are going to sit at the negotiating table with the aim of continuing war, then why invite them there?,” Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow.
– ‘Durable peace’ –
Germany on Monday tentatively welcomed the talks and called for the sides to search for a “durable peace”.
“That there is direct contact between the Americans and the Russians is not a bad thing if it is about finding a way to a durable and lasting peace,” said a foreign ministry spokesman in Berlin.
European leaders were convening in Paris for an emergency summit on Ukraine Monday, amid alarm at Washington’s diplomatic outreach to Moscow and divisions over how to best support Ukraine, including over the idea of a troop deployment.
French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly discussed the idea of a Western peacekeeping force for Ukraine.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday he was ready to send troops “if necessary” and Sweden said it was not “ruling out” a peacekeeping force.
But Berlin said it was “premature” for such a discussion and Warsaw also said it was not planning to send troops to Ukraine.
– Battlefield gains –
Moscow heads into the talks boosted by recent gains on the battlefield.
Its better resourced troops are pushing Ukraine back across the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line.
Kyiv also faces the prospect of losing vital US military aid, long criticised by Trump.
Russia’s army on Monday said its forces had captured a small settlement in northeastern Ukraine and also retaken control of a village in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock counter-offensive last August.
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