WASHINGTON — The United States formally brought Russia in from the cold Tuesday with high-level talks aimed at ending Moscow’s war with Ukraine and reestablishing long-frozen diplomatic and economic ties.
A Trump administration team led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down for four hours with senior representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the first such meeting since Russia deepened an invasion of Ukraine that launched the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
Neither Ukraine nor any European actor was invited to the talks, an omission that reversed U.S. policy that long insisted Kyiv be included in any negotiations to end the devastating war, which began three years ago. Until now, NATO and the U.S. were united in supporting Ukraine.
“This is the start of a long process,” Rubio told reporters after the meeting.
The two sides agreed on a “consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship,” the State Department said. It cited “historic economic and investment opportunities” that it claimed lie on the horizon.
They also agreed to appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.”
President Trump, for whom foreign policy is largely transactional, has said he “just wants the killing to stop” at any cost. That has led to criticism that appeasing Russia will lead to an ever more emboldened Putin at the expense of NATO and some of Russia’s European neighbors, who feel threatened by their former Soviet parent.
Tuesday’s meeting was a follow-up to Trump’s telephone conversation with Putin last week. Trump essentially ceded to Putin’s main demands: Ukraine will have to give up territory seized illegally by Russia, and must give up its goal of joining NATO.
Trump has hinted that a summit between himself and Putin, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for atrocities in Ukraine, could take place in the near future.
Moscow has already begun taking a victory lap.
“I have reason to believe that the American side has started to better understand our position, which we have once again outlined in detail, using specific examples, based on President Putin’s repeated speeches,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday, emerging from his meeting with Rubio.
Rubio was accompanied by two members of Trump’s inner circle, Middle East special envoy and real estate developer Steve Witkoff and national security advisor Mike Waltz.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had scheduled a separate trip to Saudi Arabia for later this week, but canceled it on Tuesday.
Russia is seeking to seize Ukrainian land and oust the government. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russians have been killed. Most of the Russians who have died were soldiers; a large portion of Ukrainian casualties were civilians.
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