Top U.S. and Russian officials convened in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday to discuss improving bilateral relations and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. The four-and-a-half-hour meeting marked the most extensive contact between the two adversaries since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, and it signified a stark departure from a U.S. foreign policy that has, until now, sought to isolate the Kremlin on the world stage.
Notably, no Ukrainian representatives were present in Riyadh. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Kyiv would not accept any outcome from this week’s talks since Ukraine was not invited to attend. Zelensky also postponed his planned trip to Saudi Arabia tomorrow until next month to avoid giving the U.S.-Russia talks “legitimacy,” unnamed sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Top U.S. and Russian officials convened in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Tuesday to discuss improving bilateral relations and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. The four-and-a-half-hour meeting marked the most extensive contact between the two adversaries since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, and it signified a stark departure from a U.S. foreign policy that has, until now, sought to isolate the Kremlin on the world stage.
Notably, no Ukrainian representatives were present in Riyadh. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Kyiv would not accept any outcome from this week’s talks since Ukraine was not invited to attend. Zelensky also postponed his planned trip to Saudi Arabia tomorrow until next month to avoid giving the U.S.-Russia talks “legitimacy,” unnamed sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Kyiv’s allies have expressed concern that they, too, are being sidelined. “There will be no peace in Ukraine without Ukraine or Europe,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told Foreign Policy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference this weekend.
Rubio tried to assuage these fears on Tuesday, saying, “The European Union is going to have to be at the table at some point because they have sanctions as well that have been imposed,” referring to penalties on Russia. However, Rubio and U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have indicated that Washington will consult with Kyiv and Brussels but negotiate directly with Moscow.
Russian officials, led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said they would not tolerate Kyiv joining NATO and demanded that the alliance disavow a promise made at the 2008 Bucharest summit that Ukraine could join the bloc at a future, unspecified date. Moscow’s delegation also said Russia would not accept the deployment of European or NATO troops to Ukraine, including as peacekeepers.
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