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Top US and Russian officials are to meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine, without anyone from Kyiv taking part and as Europe struggles to respond to the rapid pace of events.
The talks in Riyadh follow President Donald Trump’s landmark phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last week in which he reversed key US positions on the conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that his country won’t recognize “any agreements about us without us.”
The US is represented by White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Putin has sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov to the talks.
The meeting is a way to “determine if the Russians, perhaps, are serious and if they’re on the same page” with the US when it comes to ending the war in Ukraine, according to State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, who briefed reporters traveling with Rubio in Saudi Arabia.
“The main thing is to begin a real normalization of relations between us and Washington,” Ushakov told Russian state television on his arrival in Riyadh late Monday.
The head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, may join the talks to deal with economic issues, Ushakov earlier told state television, the Interfax news service reported. The meeting will focus on preparation for possible negotiations for a settlement in Ukraine and for a meeting between the two presidents, Ushakov said.
Trump called last week’s 90-minute call with Putin “highly productive” and said they’d likely meet in Saudi Arabia. It was the first publicly announced contact between the Russian leader and a US president since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump abandoned his predecessor President Joe Biden’s policy of refusing to engage with Russia without Kyiv’s involvement.
Following a European outcry that the US and Russia were moving forward without any representation from Ukraine, the US clarified that these were exploratory talks, and not the start of full-blown negotiations to end the three-year war that has devastated Ukraine.
“I don’t think people should view this as something that is about details or moving forward in some kind of negotiation,” Bruce said, declining to say whether a productive meeting might lead to a Trump-Putin summit.
After hosting a mini-summit of European allies in Paris on Monday to discuss Ukraine and ways to boost defense spending, French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke with Trump and then with Zelenskiy.
“We seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Macron said in a post on his X social media account. “To achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians.”
The Trump administration has said it’s opposed to deploying US troops as part of any security package for Kyiv, which puts added pressure on Europe to boost its defense spending and bolster its military capabilities.
The Paris talks exposed European divisions about the way forward. While UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he’d be ready to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine if needed alongside other nations, Polish Premier Donald Tusk ruled the option out.
“If I can’t defend myself — that’s what I told my colleagues today — if the European Union can’t defend itself, how can we provide guarantees to others,” Tusk told reporters. “These would be empty guarantees.”
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