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MUNICH — Ukrainian officials reacted with a mixture of shock and confusion to the news that top Trump administration officials are traveling to Saudi Arabia to kickstart peace talks with Russia in the coming days — and that Ukrainians were also apparently coming.
The American side said Ukrainians were invited, POLITICO first reported. But the Ukrainians said something different.
“I saw that someone said that there would be a meeting in Saudi Arabia. I do not know what it is,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
On the prospect of talks without Ukraine at the table, he said: “Well, this is not a serious conversation, it seems to me.”
One Ukrainian official at the conference expressed exasperation at the news, saying: “I don’t know where this came from, or what they expect to be the outcome of these talks where we are not invited.”
And back in Kyiv, Mykhailo Podolyak, a top Zelenskyy adviser, was even more blunt. “There is nothing on the negotiating table that would be worth discussing,” he said. “Russia is not ready for negotiations.”
Michael McCaul, a Republican House member from Texas, stunned conference-goers when he announced during an event at the POLITICO Pub on the sidelines of the conference that the meeting would be held in the coming days. And that it would include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Decoding Trump
The news — and confusion around it — has further fanned the flames of anxiety across Europe that President Donald Trump could negotiate a peace deal on Ukraine over the heads of Kyiv and other Western allies.
Trump earlier in the week said he was weighing plans to meet directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, possibly in Saudi Arabia. But dispatching his top national security team to meet with the Russians and launch the talks cemented fears that Washington was opening a dialogue with Moscow without the involvement of Europeans.
The Ukrainians interviewed by POLITICO were left confused not only about what was happening, but who was in charge.
Vice President JD Vance made no mention of the peace talks in his Munich speech, Rubio made no public remarks at the conference, and Trump’s special envoy for peace talks, Keith Kellogg, provided few answers about where the administration was headed in a closed-door lunch session. Kellogg is not scheduled to attend the talks.
“Everyone who met with Kellogg here looks like he’s collecting information and not giving it,” said Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker. “People are very confused. Nothing is clear where we’re moving.”
Some of Ukraine’s allies in Washington were shocked and deeply critical.
“Only in the perverse world of Trump diplomacy is the larger invading country given more respect than the country that was invaded — and that the country responsible for horrific war crimes was given the best chance for peace,” said Mike Quigley, a Democrat from Illinois and co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus. “It signals that Ukraine can’t expect to be treated well in the negotiations if they are not treated well at the beginning.”
But others cautioned against alarmism before the meetings happened and said the result — not the process — mattered most.
“I don’t care if [Trump] meets Putin in Cleveland. I don’t care if they talk. I don’t care if they go on vacation. It doesn’t matter to me what you do as long as you get it right,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and a close Trump ally. “President Trump owns the outcome. It doesn’t matter what [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth] says. It doesn’t matter how many phone calls were made. What matters is how it ends. If it ends in a way to deter future aggression and to stabilize the continent of Europe, he’ll get his fair share credit.”
Calling for calm
Some European leaders pushed back against the alarmism, too.
“Would I prefer the United States not to be speaking directly with Russia and certainly having Ukraine and Europe involved? Yes, I would prefer that,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said during an interview at the POLITICO Pub. “But if that is not the situation, then we have to basically convince the Americans that Europeans have skin in the game.”
Stubb said Europe now needs to prove to America that it’s tough enough to meet the moment.
“I think our problem in Europe quite often is that, you know, we talk a lot and we do a little. Right now the ball is in our court,” Stubb continued. “We have to make ourselves relevant in these negotiations and understand that it’s not only about Ukraine’s future, it’s also about the future of European security. And I actually think it’s also about the future of the United States as a superpower.”
Kellogg said at the conference that Washington, Moscow and Kyiv will be involved in talks but other Europeans won’t be there. He said involving too many parties in talks would hinder the path to peace. “It may be like [fingernails] on the blackboard, it may grate a little bit, but I am telling you something that is really quite honest.”
Spokespeople for the White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the elements of uncertainty was who, exactly, is speaking for Trump, and in what capacity. American officials had fanned out across Europe this past week in the Trump administration’s first big international push. The results were decidedly mixed, and left leaders uncertain where Washington will go next.
While NATO chief Mark Rutte told POLITICO that “everything is on the table” in any peace talks to end the fighting in Ukraine, Trump and Hegseth have both ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine as part of deal and said that they don’t see a scenario in which Kyiv recaptures all of the territory seized by Russia — although Hegseth later tried to walk back some of those comments.
“We have to end this in a way … that Putin will not capture one square mile or one square kilometer of Ukraine, ” Rutte said, adding: “I don’t think it will be a bad deal.”
Jack Detsch contributed to this report.
The post The US said Ukraine would meet with Russia to discuss peace. That was news to Kyiv appeared first on Politico.
