High Russian and American officials meet in Saudi Arabia for Ukrainian war discussions without Kyiv

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (AP) – senior officials of Russia and the United States met on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to start talks about the improvement of links and negotiations War in Ukraine.

Delegations led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gathered at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. The meeting marks another step pivot by the Trump administration To reverse American policy On the isolation of Russia and is supposed to open the way to a meeting between American President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump earlier this month upset American policy towards Ukraine and Russia saying that he and Poutine had agreed to start negotiations at the end of the war.

Ukrainian officials do not participate in the meeting, and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that his country would not accept the result if kyiv did not participate.

Rubio was accompanied by US National Security Councilor Mike Waltz and Steve Witkoff Special Envoy, while Lavrov was sitting next to the Kremlin Foreign Affairs Advisor Yuri Ushakov. The Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal Bin Farhan, and the national security advisor Musaed Al Alban joined Rubio, Lavrov and others for the start of the meeting, but had to leave at the start of the talks.

Ushakov said on Monday that talks would be “purely bilateral” and would not include Ukrainian officials.

The talks mark a significant expansion of American-Russian contacts almost three years after a war that has seen the ties falling at the lowest level for decades.

Lavrov and then the Secretary of State of the United States Antony Blinken Briefly spoken on the touch of a G-20 Meeting in India almost two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, the American and Russian species met in Turkey in the midst of the worries of Washington that Moscow can use nuclear weapons in the middle of the setbacks of the battlefield .

The recent American diplomatic blitz on war sent kyiv and the key allies rushing to ensure a seat at the table in the middle of the concerns that Washington and Moscow could take ahead with an agreement that will not be favorable to them. France called a emergency meeting countries of the European Union and the United Kingdom on Monday to decide how to react.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that he spoke by phone to Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the meeting.

“We are looking for a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,” wrote Macron on X. “To get there, Russia must end its assault, and this must be accompanied by solid and credible security guarantees for Ukrainians” -Al said and swore “working on it with all Europeans, Americans and Ukrainians.”

Before the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian direct investment fund who, according to the Kremlin, could join the talks, stressed the importance of the meeting in the comments of the Associated Press.

“Good American-Russian relations are very important to the whole world. Only jointly, Russia and the United States can solve many global problems, solve world conflicts and offer solutions, “said AP Dmitriev, who said he and his team would focus on economic issues during talks .

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

The Palais de Dériyah is facing the diplomatic district of Riyadh. It is also right next to the Ritz Carlton hotel, which became famous in 2017 after the de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, arrested other princes and the country’s elite as part of this that the royal court called for a repression against corruption, which also sidelined any potential challenge to its takeover of the kingdom.

Organizing talks is a major step towards a goal that Prince Mohammed pursued throughout the war – putting the kingdom in the midst of diplomatic negotiations. He helped prisoner negotiations and welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a summit of the Arab League in the Kingdom in 2023. Zelenskyy will probably go to Saudi Arabia later this week.

For Prince Mohammed, once described as a “pariah” by former president Joe Biden during the murder in 2018 of the journalist of Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi, the organization of such talks Burnissa the image differently Tarlée than the West has for him.

Before the summit, the newspaper of the Saudi daily Okaz described the moment as “the eye of the world on Riyadh”.

Writing in the newspaper based in London but Saudi Asharq Al Awsat, journalist Mishari al-Dhaidi described the summit as “a major stage on the international arena of political failures, revealing the status of Saudi Arabia and its positive influence profit from the benefit of people have all people, ”he wrote. The United Arab Emirates, the Prince also maintained close relations with Russia throughout his war against Ukraine, both by the Cartel Ope + Oil and also diplomatically.

The organization of the summit also balances severe criticism recently taken by the closely controlled media of the kingdom to President Donald Trump on his repeated comments according to which he wants the United States to “own” the Gaza Strip, which was devastated by the ‘Israeli military offensive since October since October. The Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank for a future state, something supported by the broader Arab world and almost the entire international community.

Meanwhile, Russia continued to beat Ukraine with drones, according to kyiv’s army. The Ukrainian Air Force said that the Russian troops had launched a 176 drones dam in Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by the scrambling.

A Russian drone struck a residential building in Dorynska in the Kirohrad region, injuring a mother and two children and causing an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported. According to local officials.

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Litvinova reported in Tallinn, Estonia. The writers of the associated press Jon Gambrell in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.