Riad, Saudi Arabia – The senior US and Russian officials, including the main diplomats of the countries, will hold conversations to improve their ties and negotiate the end of The war in UkraineThe Kremlin said Monday, in what would be the most significant meeting between the sides from the large -scale invasion of its neighbor almost three years ago.
The conversations, scheduled for Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, mark another consistent step of the Trump administration To reverse the policy of the United States When isolating Russia, and are destined to pave the way for a meeting between the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The movements have sent Kyiv and key allies to guarantee a seat on the table in the midst of concerns that Washington and Moscow could continue with an agreement that will not be favorable for them. France called a emergency meeting from the countries of the European Union and the United Kingdom on Monday to decide how to address US diplomatic bombing in war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Foreign Affairs Advisor Yuri Ushakov will fly to the Saudi capital later a day. The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and the special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet with the Russian delegation, said state department spokesman Tammy Bruce. Ukraine will not participate.
Peskov said that conversations will focus mainly on “restoring the entire relations between the United States and Russia, as well as preparing possible conversations about the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a meeting of the two presidents.”
Speaking in the program “Sunday Morning Futures” “of Fox News Channel, Witkoff said that he and Waltz will be” having meetings in the president’s direction “and hope to make” some really good progress with respect to Russia-Ukraine. “
Witkoff did not answer a question about whether Ukraine would have to give up a “significant portion” of its territory as part of any negotiated agreement. Secretary of Defense of the United States, Pete Hegseth said last week that NATO’s membership for Ukraine was not realistic and suggested that kyiv should abandon hopes of recovering its entire territory of Russia, two Key elements in the putin desire list.
The conversations would mark a significant expansion of American-ruse contacts, almost three years after a war that has seen that the ties fall at the lowest level in decades. Lavrov and then Secretary of State of the United States Antony Blinken I spoke briefly outside a G-20 Meeting in India almost two years ago. They chatted for about 10 minutes, and there were no indications of any movement to facilitate intense tensions at that time. In the fall of 2022, the sperm of the United States and Russia met in Türkiye.
Tuesday’s conversations follow the telephone call last week between Trump and Putin in which the US president said that “they agreed that our respective teams begin negotiations immediately.” The call became years of American politics, ending the isolation of Moscow during his invasion of February 24, 2022 of Ukraine. After the call, Trump Ukrainian telephone president Volodymyr Zelenskyy To inform you about your conversation.
Trump told journalists on Sunday that Zelenskyy “will be involved” but did not explain. Zelenskyy said Monday that his country had not been invited to the next talks and will not accept the result if Ukraine does not participate.
The United States Russia conversations “would not produce results,” given the absence of any Ukrainian officials, Zelenskyy said at a telephone conference with journalists from the United Arab Emirates. The participation of Ukraine in any peace conversation had been a base of American politics under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.
Zelenskyy said he would travel to Türkiye on Monday and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, but that his trip to the Arab nation was not related to Russian conversations in the United States. Andriy Yermak, a main advisor to Zelenskyy, has said that there is no possibility that Ukrainian and Russian representatives “are directly gathered” until we develop a plan “to end war and achieve a” fair peace. “
EU officials have pressed for the block, which in the United States has firmly supported kyiv, to comment on any peace conversation in Ukraine, and Zelenskyy and its officials also insisted that Europe must be present in the negotiations.
On Monday, Lavrov was derogatory when asked about a possible role for Europe, saying that “I don’t know what they have to do in the negotiation table.”
Zelenskyy also confirmed that Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg, would arrive in kyiv on February 20 for “broad conversations about security guarantees.”
Zelenskyy said he wanted to take Kellogg to the front line and expected the American to take what he learned from his Tour of Ukraine to return to the White House, and added: “I think I will have a meeting with President Trump.”
Zelenskyy said the possibility of opening his country’s mineral resources to the United States, As Trump has suggestedwould need to come with a written agreement on Security guarantees for Ukraine. Ukraine and several European countries have insisted that without security guarantees, Russia could invade the country again, even if an agreement is reached.
These guarantees could include NATO membership, which Hegseth poured cold water, weapons and economic support, said Zelenskyy.
Ukraine has also expressed the hope of joining the EU, but that is complicated and I could take years.
___
Spike reported from kyiv, Ukraine and Hatton of Lisbon, Portugal.
___
Follow the coverage of the AP War in Ukraine in https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
