High-stakes talks between senior delegations from Ukraine and the US on the best way to end Kyiv’s three-year war with Moscow opened in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, hours after Russian air defences shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over Russia.
Two people were killed and 18 were injured, including three children, in the huge drone attack that spanned 10 Russian regions, officials said. No large-scale damage was reported.
Within the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, journalists briefly entered a room where senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat for talks on ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio smiled for the cameras. Asked what’s his expectations for the meeting were, Rubio gave a thumbs up and replied, “Good.”
Ukrainian officials, including the country’s top diplomat and defense chief, sat without expression at a table across from them because the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian or U.S. officials on the drone attack.
Nonetheless, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak commented to reporters that crucial thing was “the best way to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” He said security guarantees were necessary to stop Russia from invading again in the longer term. In 2014, Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was readily available for the talks as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags stood within the background. Officials didn’t answer any of the shouted questions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the US will inform Russia in regards to the results of the Jeddah talks, which he described as “normal practice.”
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The talks offer a possibility for Kyiv officials to repair Ukraine’s relationship with Trump’s administration after an unprecedented argument erupted during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Feb. 28 visit to the White House. Critically, Ukraine needs to steer Washington to finish the following U.S. suspension of military aid and a few intelligence sharing. U.S. officials have said that positive talks in Jeddah could mean it could be only a brief suspension.
Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they are going to propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which might bring safer shipping, as well long-range missile strikes which have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the discharge of prisoners.
The 2 senior officials said Kyiv can be able to sign an agreement with the US on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals — a deal that U.S. President Donald Trump is keen to secure.
On his plane to Jeddah, Rubio said the U.S. delegation wouldn’t be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the three-year conflict but relatively wanted to listen to from Ukraine about what they’d be willing to contemplate.
“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they should or must do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I believe we would like to hearken to see how far they’re willing to go after which compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
Rubio said the rare earths and significant minerals deal might be signed in the course of the meeting but stressed it was not a precondition for the US to maneuver ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.
He said it could, actually, make more sense to take a while to barter the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.
The Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it’s able to stop hostilities given that Ukraine drops its bid to hitch NATO and recognizes regions that Moscow occupies as Russian. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory because the war began.
Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for greater than a 12 months, though at a high cost in infantry and armor, and are pushing at chosen points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially within the eastern Donetsk region, against Ukraine’s understrength and weary army.
Ukraine has invested heavily in developing its arms industry, especially high-tech drones which have reached deep into Russia.
Many of the Ukrainian drones fired overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, in response to a press release by Russia’s Defense Ministry.
Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the most important single attack on Moscow up to now within the war.
The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and plenty of cars.
One other person was wounded on a highway within the Lipetsk region, Gov. Igor Artamonov said.
Sobyanin said the roof of a constructing in Moscow also sustained damage, which he described as “insignificant.” Footage of the constructing, published by RIA Novosti, showed a charred spot on the facade of a multi-story residential constructing near the roof, with bits of the constructing’s lining stripped off.
Flights were temporarily restricted out and in of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports within the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
Associated Press author Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
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