The top diplomats from Russia and the U.S. met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine — talks that represented a rapid and major change in American foreign policy under President Donald Trump.
No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which comes as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country won’t accept any outcome from this week’s talks if Kyiv doesn’t take part. European allies have also expressed concerns they are being sidelined.
Beyond Ukraine, the meeting — attended by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other senior officials — is expected to focus on thawing relations between the two countries, whose ties have fallen to their lowest level in decades. It is meant to pave the way for a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Concerns from allies they are being sidelined
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that the talks will be primarily focused on “restoring the entire range of U.S.-Russian relations, as well as preparing possible talks on the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a meeting of the two presidents.” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the meeting is aimed at determining how serious the Russians are about wanting peace and whether detailed negotiations can be started.
The recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favorable to them.
Kyiv’s absence at Tuesday’s talks has rankled many Ukrainians, and France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the U.K. on Monday to discuss the war.
Bruce has said that even though Ukraine will not be at the table Tuesday, any actual peace negotiations will include the country. Kyiv’s participation in such talks was a bedrock of U.S. policy under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, whose administration also led international efforts to isolate Russia over the war.
White House officials have also pushed back against the notion that Europe has been left out of the conversation, noting that administration officials have spoken to several leaders.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he spoke by phone to Trump and Zelenskyy following the meeting he called in Paris.
“We seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Macron wrote on social media platform X. “To achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,” he said and vowed to “work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians.”
Peskov on Tuesday said that Putin has repeatedly expressed readiness for peace talks, and noted that a “a comprehensive settlement, a long-term settlement, a viable settlement” of the conflict in Ukraine is impossible without “a comprehensive consideration of security issues” in Europe.
Saudi Arabia’s role
The meeting at the Diriyah Palace in the Saudi capital of Riyadh also highlights de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to be a major diplomatic player, burnishing a reputation severely tarnished by the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi state media described the talks as happening at the prince’s direction. Like the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince has maintained close relations to Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, both through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well.
Saudi Arabia has also helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in 2023. Zelenskyy said he would travel to the kingdom later this week.
Rubio was accompanied by U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrov sat next to the Kremlin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaed al Alban joined Rubio, Lavrov and others for the start of the meeting but were expected to leave early in the talks.
Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund who the Kremlin said might join, underscored the importance of the meeting.
“Good U.S.-Russia relations are very important for the whole world. Only jointly can Russia and the U.S. address lots of world problems, resolve for global conflicts and offer solutions,” Dmitriev, who said he and his team would focus on economic issues at the talks, told The Asscoiated Press.
The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya, citing the Russian delegation, described Moscow’s priority as “real normalization with Washington.”
The meeting marks the most extensive contact between the two countries since Moscow’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion. Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, U.S. and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington’s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks.
War continues
Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv’s military. The Ukrainian air force said Russian troops launched a barrage of 176 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.
One Russian drone struck a residential building in Dolynska in the Kirovohrad region, wounding a mother and her two children and prompting an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported. Four more residential buildings were damaged by drone debris in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, according to local officials.
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Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.
The top diplomats from Russia and the U.S. are meeting in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
RIYADH – Senior officials from Russia and the U.S. met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to begin talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.
Delegations led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. The meeting marks another pivotal step by the Trump administration to reverse U.S. policy on isolating Russia and is meant to pave the way for a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Trump earlier this month upended U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia by saying he and Putin had agreed to begin negotiations on ending the war.
Ukrainian officials aren’t taking part in the meeting, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that his country won’t accept the outcome if Kyiv doesn’t take part.
Rubio was accompanied by U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrov sat next to the Kremlin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaed al Alban joined Rubio, Lavrov and others for the start of the meeting but were expected to leave early in the talks.
Ushakov said Monday the talks would be “purely bilateral” and would not include Ukrainian officials.
The talks mark a significant expansion of U.S.-Russian contacts nearly three years into a war that has seen ties fall to the lowest level in decades.
Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, U.S. and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington’s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks.
The recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Kyiv and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favorable to them. France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the U.K. on Monday to decide how to respond.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he spoke by phone to Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy following the meeting.
“We seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Macron wrote on X. “To achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,” he said and vowed to “work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians.”
Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund who the Kremlin said might join the talks, underscored the importance of the meeting in comments to The Associated Press.
“Good U.S.-Russia relations are very important for the whole world. Only jointly can Russia and the U.S. address lots of world problems, resolve for global conflicts and offer solutions,” Dmitriev, who said he and his team would focus on economic issues at the talks, told AP.
The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya, citing the Russian delegation, described Moscow’s priority as “real normalization with Washington.”
Diriyah Palace sits across the street from Riyadh’s Diplomatic Quarter. It’s also just next to the Ritz Carlton hotel, which became famous in 2017 after de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman detained other princes and the country’s elite there as part of what the royal court called a crackdown on corruption, that also sidelined any potential challenge to his taking control of the kingdom.
Hosting the talks is a major step toward a goal Prince Mohammed has pursued throughout the war — putting the kingdom in the middle of diplomatic negotiations. It has helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in the kingdom in 2023. Zelenskyy will likely travel to Saudi Arabia later this week.
For Prince Mohammed, once described as a “pariah” by former President Joe Biden over the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, hosting such talks burnish the otherwise-tarnished image the West has for him.
Ahead of the summit, the Saudi daily newspaper Okaz described the moment as the “world’s eye on Riyadh.”
Writing in the London-based but Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, journalist Mishari al-Dhaidi described the summit as “a major step on the international political chess arena, revealing the status of Saudi Arabia and its positive influence for the benefit of the people all the people,” he wrote. the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince also has maintained close relations to Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, both through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well.
Hosting the summit also balances the harsh criticism recently levied by the kingdom’s tightly controlled media at President Donald Trump over his repeated comments that he wants the U.S. to “own” the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the Israeli military offensive there since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank for a future state, something backed by the wider Arab world and nearly all of the international community.
Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv’s military. The Ukrainian air force said Russian troops launched a barrage of 176 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.
One Russian drone struck a residential building in Dolynska in Kirovohrad region, injuring a mother and her two children and prompting an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported. Four more residential buildings were damaged by drone debris in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, according to local officials.
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Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
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