KEY POINTS
- Top diplomats from Russia and the US will meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for Ukraine peace talks.
- Russian FM Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rubio will attend the talks in Riyadh.
- This marks the first direct high-level meeting between Russia and the US since the war began.
- Trump seeks a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict but has not outlined a clear negotiation plan.
- Zelensky expresses concern over being excluded from the talks.
- EU leaders fear the US could make concessions to Russia, weakening Europe’s security.
MOSCOW: The United States and Russia have confirmed that their top diplomats will meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine amid growing European concerns over Washington’s shifting stance towards Moscow.
Senior officials will travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday, the US State Department and the Kremlin confirmed. They will meet in Riyadh on Tuesday intending to lay the groundwork for Ukraine peace talks, the two sides said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy advisor to President Vladimir Putin, were due to travel, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
They will meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, the State Department said. Rubio landed in Riyadh on Monday for Ukraine talks.
It will be the first meeting between senior representatives of both countries since the Ukraine war started 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.
The meeting will also discuss the possibilities for a summit between Trump and Putin, the Kremlin said Monday.
Putin, Trump meeting
Moscow said the talks would be “primarily devoted to restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations.”
Following reports that US President Donald Trump could meet Putin in Saudi Arabia, the Republican leader said at the weekend that such a meeting could happen “very soon”.
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.
Rubio said on Sunday that Tuesday’s meeting would seek to open a broader conversation that “would include Ukraine and would involve the end of the war”.
“A process towards peace is not a one-meeting thing,” he told the US television network CBS.
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.
Zelensky’s visit to Saudi Arabia
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.
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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.
EU concerns
Trump has announced that he intends to talk “peace in Ukraine” directly with Putin. US officials confirmed over the weekend that they do not expect Europe to be involved.
That has prompted alarm that the US president could hand concessions to Russia and Europe’s security architecture and its defence partnership with the US could be weakened.
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.
Before the informal summit in France, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said European leaders will discuss how to prevent a peace negotiation from ending up rewarding Russia.
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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.
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.
