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Senior US and Russian officials will meet Tuesday in Riyadh, in what Kremlin characterized as an attempt to impose talks to end the war in Ukraine and discuss “restoring all bilateral relations”.
The Trump administration confirmed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff would meet the Russian delegation in the Saudi capital. But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said Kyiv will not participate “in the talks and” know nothing about it “.
Speaking from the United Arab Emirates, Zelenskyy added: “Ukraine is about Ukraine negotiations without Ukraine as those who do not work, and we cannot recognize them.. Any deal for us without us.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser, will address Moscow’s delegation to Riyadh, Dmitry Pekov, the Russian president’s spokesman, told reporters on Monday.
Russia is creating the meeting as the beginning of its return from the cold after years of Western efforts to isolate it in response to its occupation in Ukraine.
“The presidents agreed to leave after this absolutely ridiculous period in American relations-Russia when they essentially did not speak, except for isolated technical and humanitarian issues,” Lavrov said on Monday.
US and Western officials have described this week’s meetings as logistical and aimed at a possible meeting between President Donald Trump and Putin and the end of the Ukraine war.
“Hopefully, we will make a really good progress about Russia-Ukraine,” Witkoff Fox News told Riyadh talks.
Talks collected in a hurry have alarmed Ukraine and its European allies. SH.BA did not inform its allies about Trump’s call with Putin in advance and largely left them out of the process, though it has said that Ukraine could join the talks at a later date.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who has tried to play a mediator role in conflict in the past, has invited Zelenskyy to visit Ankara on Tuesday.
Rubio said there was no “no process” yet to end the war and that the team was exploring ways to create one. He said he expected to eventually include Ukraine and Europe in some way.
“If they are real negotiations, and we are not there yet, but if that happened, Ukraine will have to be included because they are the ones that were occupied. And Europeans will have to be included because they also have sanctions on Putin and Russia, ”he told CBS.
Russia rejected European efforts to engrave a place in peace talks and possibly send a peacekeeping contingent to Ukraine.
“Their desire to be part of the Ukrainian negotiation process has been pleased more than once,” Lavrov said, referring to the failed Minsk process, led by France and Germany, which mediated a fragile ceasefire after the invasion beginners of Russia in 2014.
As long as European countries want to strengthen Ukraine militarily, “I don’t know if there is anything for them to do at the negotiation table,” he added.
Peskov said it was “difficult to speak” a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine because it will include NATO members and “NATO troops will settle in the territory of Ukraine”.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has offered to place “British Earth” boots in Ukraine in front of a summit with other European leaders on Monday.
