KEY POINTS
- Ukraine-US talks in Saudi Arabia are focussed on a partial ceasefire
- Ukraine launched the largest drone attack on Russia.
- Trump pushes Ukraine to negotiate a peace deal with Russia
- Ukraine launched 337 drones at Russia, killing three persons
- Russian air defences shot down most drones
- Ukraine seeks an aerial and naval ceasefire to restore US assistance
- Zelensky resisted US minerals deal but remains open to signing
- US surprise allies by aligning closer to Russia at the UN
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia: Ukraine said talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia began “very constructively” on Tuesday, with a partial ceasefire with Russia on the table hours after Kyiv conducted its largest drone attack on Moscow in three years of war.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga attended the meeting in Jeddah — which Russia was not participating in — as President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on Ukraine to end the war with Russia.
The talks come just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s public dressing-down at the White House, after which the United States cut off military aid, intelligence sharing and access to satellite imagery.
Ukraine is hoping the offer of a partial ceasefire in the sky and at sea will persuade Washington to restore the assistance.
“We are ready to do everything to achieve peace,” Ukrainian presidency chief of staff Andriy Yermak told reporters as he entered Tuesday’s meeting at a luxury hotel.
Kyiv officials said the “largest drone attack in history”, in which hundreds of drones slammed into Moscow and other areas overnight, was intended to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to the aerial and naval ceasefire.
“This is an additional signal to Putin that he should also be interested in a ceasefire in the air,” said Andriy Kovalenko, a national security council official responsible for countering disinformation.
Russia shot down 337 Ukrainian drones
Three people were killed in the attack, which both sides said was the biggest so far on Moscow.
The Russian military has said its air defences shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions overnight in what appears to be the biggest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia in three years.
Russia’s Defence Ministry in a statement said that most of the drones – 126 – were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region.
Other regions listed in the statement included Belgorod, Bryansk and Voronezh on the border with Ukraine, and those deeper inside Russia, such as Kaluga, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Oryol and Ryazan.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said more than 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying towards it.
Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, said one person was killed and nine others were injured in the attack, which also damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.
Another person was wounded on a highway in the Lipetsk region, governor Igor Artamonov said.
Flights have been temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
Train traffic through the Domodedovo railway station in the Moscow region has also been briefly halted, local officials reported.
Local authorities also reported downing drones in the Tula and Vladimir regions adjacent to the Moscow region. It was not immediately clear why those regions were not mentioned in the Defence Ministry’s statement.
US-Ukraine minerals deal
Zelensky, who met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman in Jeddah on Monday, left the White House late last month without signing an agreement pushed by Trump that would give the United States control over Ukrainian mineral resources.
Zelensky has said he is still willing to sign, although Rubio said it would not be the focus of Tuesday’s meeting.
Rubio, who is accompanied by national security advisor Mike Waltz, said the aid suspension was “something I hope we can resolve” in the talks.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a good meeting and good news to report,” Rubio said.
Rubio said the United States had not cut off intelligence for defensive operations.
“The meeting with the US team started very constructively, we continue our work,” Yermak said on social media Tuesday.
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Asked whether the overnight drone attack could derail peace talks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said: “There are no (peace) negotiations yet, so there is nothing to disrupt here.”
He also declined earlier to comment on Russia’s stance on the proposed partial ceasefire.
“It is absolutely impossible to talk about positions yet,” he said.
“The Americans will find out only today, as they themselves say, from Ukraine to what extent Ukraine is ready for peace.”
For its part, Russia said it had retaken 12 settlements in its Kursk region that Ukraine had captured in a bid for bargaining leverage.
Rubio seeks ‘concessions’
In the infamous White House meeting last month, Zelensky refused to bite his tongue in the face of criticism from Vice President JD Vance, with the Ukrainian leader questioning why his country should trust promises from Russia.
He has since written a repentant letter to Trump.
Faced with Washington’s pressure, Ukraine will lay out its support for a limited ceasefire in the sky and at sea, a Ukrainian official said as cited by AFP on Monday.
Rubio signalled that the Trump administration would likely be pleased by such a proposal.
“I’m not saying that alone is enough, but it’s the kind of concession you would need to see in order to end the conflict,” he told reporters.
“You’re not going to get a ceasefire and an end to this war unless both sides make concessions.”
Rubio said he did not expect to be “drawing lines on a map” towards a final deal in the Jeddah meeting, but said he would bring ideas back to Russia.
Rubio and Waltz met last month with counterparts from Russia, also in Saudi Arabia, ending a freeze in high-level contacts imposed by former president Joe Biden.
Trump last week also threatened further sanctions against Russia to force it to the table as it carried out strikes on Ukraine.
But Trump’s abrupt shift in US policy — including suggesting Ukraine was to blame for the war, and recently siding with Russia in recent votes at the UN — has stunned many allies.
Rubio said Monday that the United States would also object to “antagonistic” language on Russia at an upcoming gathering of Group of Seven foreign ministers.
