The best diplomats from Russia and the USA met on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss the improvement of the bond and negotiating the end of the war in Ukraine, in conversations, which were a quick and serious change in American foreign policy under US President Donald Trump.
At the meeting there were no Ukrainian officials that appeared when the besieged country slowly but constantly lose their ground against more and more Russian soldiers during the grinding war, which began almost three years ago.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his country would not accept any results due to talks this week if Kijv did not take part. European allies have also expressed fears that they were moved to the side.
Apart from Ukraine, the meeting was attended by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrow and other higher officials – will focus on conversations between two countries whose ties have fallen to the lowest level since decades. This is to pave the road to a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The meeting means the most extensive contact between two countries from Moscow on February 24, 2022, an invasion of Ukraine.
“President Putin has been repeating his words about readiness for peace conversations from the very beginning,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov noticed that “a comprehensive settlement, long -term settlement, real settlement” of the conflict in Ukraine is impossible without “comprehensive consideration of security problems” in Europe.
A spokesman for the US Department of State, Tammy Bruce, said that the meeting aims to determine how serious Russians are in the desire to peace and whether detailed negotiations can start. Bruce said that although Ukraine will not be at the table on Tuesday, all actual peace negotiations cover the country.
Participation in Kiev in such conversations was the basis of American policy under Trump's rule, Joe Biden, whose administration also led international efforts to areolation of Russia during the war. The White House officials also pushed the view that Europe was omitted in the conversation, noting that administration officials talked to several leaders.
Trump, the envoy meets the EU leader
The recent American diplomatic Blitz in the war meant that Ukraine and key allies tried to provide a place at the table among the fears that Washington and Moscow could press on a contract that would not be favorable to them. The absence of the Tuesday talks caused many Ukrainians, and France convened an emergency meeting of the European Union and Great Britain on Monday to discuss the war.
The French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that he talked to Trump and Zelenskyy after the meeting, which he convened in Paris.
European leaders met on Monday in Paris during talks in emergency about the ongoing war of Ukraine, when the US is preparing peace talks with Russia.
“We are looking for strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Macron wrote on the Social Media platform X. “To achieve this, Russia must end aggression, and must be accompanied by strong and reliable security guarantees for Ukrainians,” he said.
According to her office, the president of the EU committee Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday to the Messenger of Ukraine Trump Keith Kellogg that Europe wants to cooperate with the USA in conversations aimed at ending the Ukrainian war.
“Financially and militarily, Europe introduced more to the table than anyone else,” she said in a post on the social platform X after meeting Kellogg in Brussels. “And we will speed up.”
The von der Leyen office stated in a statement that during the meeting she “repeated that each resolution must respect Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, supported by strong security guarantees.”
She also presented European plans “Increasing production and defense expenditure, strengthening both European and Ukrainian military capabilities,” said her office.
Many world leaders and Ukrainian president Wolodymyr Zelenskyy reacted with skepticism about the plan of US President Donald Trump about the end of the war through discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Night Dam of the Drone
The meeting at the Diriyah Palace in the capital of Saudi Arabia Riyjad is also emphasized by the crown leader of Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to become the main diplomatic player, burning a reputation seriously damaged by the murder of journalist Washington Post Jamal Khashogga. Saudi state media described conversations as taking place towards the prince.
Zelenskyy said he would go to the kingdom this week.
Rubio was accompanied by US national security advisor Mike Waltz and a special envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrow sat next to the Kremlin's foreign advisor, Yuri Ushakov.
The Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan and the Musaed Al Alban National Security Advisor joined Rubio, Lavrow and others at the beginning of the meeting, but they were expected to leave at the beginning of the talks.
Meanwhile, Russia still hit Ukraine with drones, according to Kijik's army. Ukrainian Air Force informed that the Russian troops fired for the night of 176 drones in Ukraine, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.
One Russian drone hit a residential building in the Dolin in the Kirovohrad region, hurting his mother and her two children and causing evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration informed. According to local officials, four more residential buildings were damaged by drones in the Cherkasy region in Ukraine.