By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Top US and Russian diplomats on Tuesday met in Saudi Arabia for talks aimed at restoring fractured relations, since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
At Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, the talks began without visible handshakes, and no statements were made, as Ukraine was also visibly absent.
Both sides downplayed expectations of a breakthrough in this first high-level meeting between the countries since US President Donald Trump took office.
A stern-faced US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat across from Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, with US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff by his side.
Lavrov was accompanied by senior Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaad bin Mohammad al-Aiban also attended.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was not invited to the discussions. European leaders met in Paris on Monday for emergency talks on how to respond to the radical pivot by the new Trump administration.
Preparations for a possible summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are also expected to be on the agenda.
Trump is pushing for a swift resolution to the three-year conflict in Ukraine, while Russia sees his outreach as a chance to win concessions.
Zelensky said Kyiv “did not know anything about” the talks in Riyadh, according to Ukrainian news agencies, and that it “cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us”.
As the Riyadh meeting got underway, the Kremlin said a lasting settlement in Ukraine would be “impossible” without addressing the wider issue of European security and that Ukraine had the “sovereign right” to join the European Union but that it was opposed to it joining NATO.
“A lasting and long-term viable resolution is impossible without a comprehensive consideration of security issues on the continent,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding Putin was ready to talk to Zelensky “if necessary”.
Russia said ahead of the meeting that Putin and Trump wanted to move on from “abnormal relations” and that it saw no place for Europeans to be at any negotiating table.
Peskov earlier told reporters the Riyadh talks would be “primarily devoted to restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations”, alongside discussions on “possible negotiations on a Ukrainian resolution, and organising a meeting between the two presidents”.
Moscow, which for years has sought to roll back NATO’s presence in Europe, has made clear it wants to hold bilateral talks with the United States on a plethora of broad security issues, not just a possible Ukraine ceasefire.
Both Ukraine and Russia have ruled out territorial concessions and Putin last year demanded Kyiv withdraw its troops from even more territory.
Zelensky was in Turkey on Tuesday for discussions on the conflict with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He is due in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
Zelensky said last week he was prepared to meet Putin, but only after Kyiv and its allies had a common position on ending the war.
