Moscow: Senior American and Russian officials, including the countries’ top diplomats, will hold talks on improving their ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Monday, in what would be the most significant meeting between the sides since Moscow’s full-scale invasion nearly three years ago.
The talks, scheduled for Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, mark another powerful step by the Trump administration to reverse US policy on isolating Russia, and are meant to pave the way for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The moves have sent Kyiv and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table, and France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the UK on Monday to decide how to address the US blitz.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov will fly to the Saudi capital later in the day.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will meet the Russian delegation, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said. Ukraine will not participate.
Peskov said the talks will be primarily focused on “restoring the entire complex of US-Russian relations, as well as preparing possible talks on the Ukrainian settlement and organising a meeting of the two presidents.”
Speaking on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” programme, Witkoff said he and Waltz will be “having meetings at the direction of the president,” and hope to make “some really good progress with regard to Russia-Ukraine.”
In his TV interview, Witkoff didn’t directly respond to a question about whether Ukraine would have to give up a “significant portion” of its territory as part of any negotiated settlement.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia — two key items on Putin’s wish list.
Lavrov and then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago. The two chatted for about 10 minutes, and there was no indication of any movement toward easing the intense tensions between their two nations at the time. In the fall of 2022, US and Russian spymasters met in Turkiye.
Tuesday’s talks will follow last week’s telephone call between US President Donald Trump and Putin in which Trump said they “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.”
The call upended years of US policy, ending the isolation of Moscow over its February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine. After the call, Trump phoned Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to inform him about their conversation.
Trump on Sunday told reporters that Zelenskyy “will be involved,” but did not elaborate. Zelenskyy said Monday his country had not been invited to the upcoming talks and won’t accept the outcome if Ukraine doesn’t take part. Ukraine’s participation in any peace talks had been a bedrock of US policy under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.
Speaking to journalists on a conference call from the United Arab Emirates, Zelenskyy said the meeting would “yield no results,” given the absence of any Ukrainian officials.
Zelenskyy said he would travel to Turkiye on Monday and to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, but that his trip to the Arab nation was unrelated to planned US-Russia talks there on Tuesday. Andriy Yermak, a top Zelenskyy adviser, has said there is no possibility of Ukrainian and Russian representatives meeting directly “until we develop a plan” to end the war and bring about a “just peace.”
EU officials have pushed for the bloc to have a say in any Ukraine peace talks, and Zelenskyy and his officials also insisted that Europe needs to be present at the negotiations.
Lavrov on Monday was dismissive when asked about a possible role for Europe, saying that “I don’t know what they have to do at the negotiations table.”
