Top United States and Russian diplomats are currently meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks on resetting their countries’ fractured relations and making a tentative start on trying to end the Ukraine war.
Both sides played down the chances that the first high-level meeting between the countries since US President Donald Trump took office would result in a breakthrough.
Reporters in Riyadh said the meeting between US and Russian diplomats began in the morning at the Saudi capital’s Diriyah Palace.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was not invited to the discussions in Riyadh, as European leaders are expected to meet in Paris on Monday for emergency talks on how to respond to the radical pivot by the new Trump administration.
Preparations for a possible summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are also expected to be on the agenda.
Trump is pushing for a swift resolution to the three-year conflict in Ukraine, while Russia sees his outreach as a chance to win concessions.
Zelensky said Kyiv “did not know anything about” the talks in Riyadh, according to Ukrainian news agencies, and that it “cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us”.
He said on social media that any peace deal would need to include “robust and reliable” security guarantees, which France and Britain have called for but not all European powers support.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun welcomed “efforts towards peace” in Ukraine, adding that “at the same time, we hope that all parties and stakeholders can participate” in talks.
Russia said ahead of the meeting that Putin and Trump wanted to move on from “abnormal relations” and that it saw no place for Europeans to be at any negotiating table.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and senior Putin aide Yuri Ushakov will meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
