Top Russian and US officials are discussing improving ties and ending the Ukraine war — without Kyiv

[February 18, 2025]  By MATTHEW LEE, BARAA ANWER and DASHA LITVINOVA

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The top diplomats from Russia and the U.S. met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine — talks that represented a rapid and major change in American foreign policy under President Donald Trump.

No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which comes as the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country won’t accept any outcome from this week's talks if Kyiv doesn't take part. European allies have also expressed concerns they are being sidelined.

Beyond Ukraine, the meeting — attended by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other senior officials — is expected to focus on thawing relations between the two countries, whose ties have fallen to their lowest level in decades. It is meant to pave the way for a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Concerns from allies they are being sidelined

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that the talks will be primarily focused on “restoring the entire range of U.S.-Russian relations, as well as preparing possible talks on the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a meeting of the two presidents.” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the meeting is aimed at determining how serious the Russians are about wanting peace and whether detailed negotiations can be started.

The recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favorable to them.

Kyiv's absence at Tuesday's talks has rankled many Ukrainians, and France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the U.K. on Monday to discuss the war.

Bruce has said that even though Ukraine will not be at the table Tuesday, any actual peace negotiations will include the country. Kyiv’s participation in such talks was a bedrock of U.S. policy under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, whose administration also led international efforts to isolate Russia over the war.

White House officials have also pushed back against the notion that Europe has been left out of the conversation, noting that administration officials have spoken to several leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he spoke by phone to Trump and Zelenskyy following the meeting he called in Paris.

“We seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Macron wrote on social media platform X. “To achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,” he said and vowed to “work on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians.”

Peskov on Tuesday said that Putin has repeatedly expressed readiness for peace talks, and noted that a “a comprehensive settlement, a long-term settlement, a viable settlement” of the conflict in Ukraine is impossible without “a comprehensive consideration of security issues” in Europe.

Saudi Arabia's role

The meeting at the Diriyah Palace in the Saudi capital of Riyadh also highlights de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to be a major diplomatic player, burnishing a reputation severely tarnished by the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, center, sits next to U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammad Al-Aiban, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, at Diriyah Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool Photo via AP)

Saudi state media described the talks as happening at the prince’s direction. Like the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince has maintained close relations to Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, both through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well.

Saudi Arabia has also helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in 2023. Zelenskyy said he would travel to the kingdom later this week.

Rubio was accompanied by U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrov sat next to the Kremlin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaed al Alban joined Rubio, Lavrov and others for the start of the meeting but were expected to leave early in the talks.

Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund who the Kremlin said might join, underscored the importance of the meeting.

“Good U.S.-Russia relations are very important for the whole world. Only jointly can Russia and the U.S. address lots of world problems, resolve for global conflicts and offer solutions,” Dmitriev, who said he and his team would focus on economic issues at the talks, told The Asscoiated Press.

The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya, citing the Russian delegation, described Moscow’s priority as “real normalization with Washington.”

The meeting marks the most extensive contact between the two countries since Moscow's Feb. 24, 2022, invasion. Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, U.S. and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington’s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks.

War continues

Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv's military. The Ukrainian air force said Russian troops launched a barrage of 176 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.

One Russian drone struck a residential building in Dolynska in the Kirovohrad region, wounding a mother and her two children and prompting an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported. Four more residential buildings were damaged by drone debris in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, according to local officials.
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Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

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