Senior diplomats from Russia and the United States agreed Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to initial steps toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving relations between Moscow and Washington.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, and national security adviser Mike Waltz represented the U.S. in the meeting, while Russia was represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Saudi national security adviser Mosaad bin Mohammad Al Aiban also participated in the conversation.
The two sides agreed to four points that will figure heavily into the next steps in ending the conflict, according to a State Department readout of the meeting.
They agreed to establish a consultation mechanism to address “irritants to our bilateral relationship” with the goal of normalizing the diplomatic missions in both countries, to appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict,” to lay the groundwork for future cooperation, and for both sides “to remain engaged to make sure the process moves forward in a timely and productive manner.”
No Ukrainian officials were present at the high-stakes meeting on Tuesday at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. Officials from the war-torn country have said they would not accept a deal agreed upon between the U.S. and Russia without their input.
“Should this conflict come to an acceptable end, the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians geopolitically on issues of common interest and frankly, economically on issues that hopefully will be good for the world and also improve our relations in the long term,” Rubio said, according to the Associated Press.
Tuesday's meeting is a precursor for an eventual meeting between Trump and Putin, though it is unclear when such a summit could occur. They spoke over the phone last week, and Trump announced on social media shortly after the call that they had agreed to start these negotiations.
Ushakov said it is unlikely that it will take place next week, according to Russian media outlet Tass.
Ukraine and other European countries have expressed concerns since last week's Trump-Putin call that they could be left out of the negotiations, and Kyiv's exclusion from Tuesday's conversation emphasized that fear.
“I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine,” Zelensky said Sunday on Meet The Press. "Never. And our people, never. And our adults, and children, and everybody, it can't be so. The war in Ukraine is against us, and it is our human losses. And we are thankful for all the support, unity between USA, in USA, around Ukraine support, bipartisan unity, bipartisan support, we're thankful for all of this. But there is not any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us about us."
Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made headlines for saying that it was unrealistic for Ukraine to expect to reclaim all of its territory occupied by Russia dating back more than a decade and effectively ruled out Ukrainian ascension into NATO, though he later walked back the comments saying that the president had not taken anything off the table.
He also warned European allies that they would need to do more to strengthen their defenses as the U.S. would be turning its attention to the Pacific.
Zelensky also met with Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday.
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The Trump administration has also floated a deal with Ukraine that would include Kyiv giving the U.S. $500 billion in rare earth minerals in exchange for aid ending Russia’s invasion. Zelensky directed his ministers not to sign off on this deal.
Under former President Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. sent billions of dollars of military assistance to Ukraine and maintained a stance that it would not force Ukraine to the negotiating table and would continue providing such assistance as long as necessary.