United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that officials at U.S.-Russia talks agreed to revive embassy staffing and create a high-level team to barter peace in Ukraine peace and promote economic cooperation.
Rubio said that actions during the last several years have reduced each countries’ diplomatic missions’ abilities to operate.
“We’re going to wish to have vibrant diplomatic missions which are capable of function normally to be able to give you the option to proceed these conduits,” he said.
This comes as top diplomats from Russia and the U.S. met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to debate improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine — talks that reflected a serious and rapid change in American foreign policy under U.S. President Donald Trump.
No Ukrainian officials were present on the meeting, which got here because the beleaguered country is slowly but steadily losing ground against more quite a few Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country won’t accept any consequence from this week’s talks if Kyiv doesn’t participate. European allies have also expressed concerns they’re being sidelined.
Beyond Ukraine, the meeting — attended by Rubio, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other senior officials — had been expected to concentrate on thawing relations between the 2 countries, whose ties have fallen to their lowest level in a long time.
It was also meant to pave the way in which for a gathering between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. After the talks wrapped, Putin’s foreign affairs advisor, Yuri Ushakov, told Russia’s Channel One which no date has been set yet for that summit but that it was “unlikely” to happen next week.
Concerns from allies they’re being sidelined
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that the talks can be primarily focused on “restoring the complete range of U.S.-Russian relations, in addition to preparing possible talks on the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a gathering of the 2 presidents.” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce has said the meeting was geared toward determining how serious the Russians are about wanting peace and whether detailed negotiations could be began.
After the meeting, Ushakov’s remarks suggested the 2 sides made little progress. Russia and the US agreed to “take one another’s interests under consideration” and advance their relations. He added that it was “hard to say” that the 2 countries’ positions “are getting closer, but there was speak about it.”
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Within the wake of Moscow’s 2022 invasion, the U.S., together with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia and the allies have repeatedly expanded the measures to wreck its economy.
The recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to make sure a seat on the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favorable to them.
Kyiv’s absence at Tuesday’s talks has rankled many Ukrainians, and France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the U.K. on Monday to debate the war.
Bruce has said that regardless that Ukraine won’t be on the table Tuesday, any actual peace negotiations will include the country. Kyiv’s participation in such talks was a bedrock of U.S. policy under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, whose administration also led international efforts to isolate Russia over the war.
White House officials have also pushed back against the notion that Europe has been disregarded of the conversation, noting that administration officials have spoken to several leaders.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he spoke by phone to Trump and Zelenskyy following the meeting he called in Paris.
“We seek a robust and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Macron wrote on social media platform X. “To attain this, Russia must end its aggression, and this have to be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,” he said and vowed to “work on this along with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians.”
Peskov on Tuesday said that Putin has repeatedly expressed readiness for peace talks, and noted that a durable settlement of the conflict in Ukraine can be unattainable without “a comprehensive consideration of security issues” in Europe.
The meeting on the Diriyah Palace within the Saudi capital of Riyadh also highlights de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to be a serious diplomatic player, burnishing a status severely tarnished by the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Saudi state media described the talks as happening on the prince’s direction. Just like the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince has maintained close relations to Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, each through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well.
Saudi Arabia has also helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in 2023. Zelenskyy said he would travel to the dominion later this week.
Rubio was accompanied by U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrov sat next to the Kremlin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaed al Alban joined Rubio, Lavrov and others for the beginning of the meeting but were expected to depart early within the talks.
Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the top of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund who the Kremlin said might join, underscored the importance of the meeting.
“Good U.S.-Russia relations are very vital for the entire world. Only jointly can Russia and the U.S. address numerous world problems, resolve for global conflicts and offer solutions,” Dmitriev, who said he and his team would concentrate on economic issues on the talks, told The Associated Press.
The meeting marked essentially the most extensive contact between the 2 countries since Moscow’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion. Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the autumn of 2022, U.S. and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington’s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks.
Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, in line with Kyiv’s military. The Ukrainian air force said Russian troops launched a barrage of 176 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.
One Russian drone struck a residential constructing in Dolynska within the Kirovohrad region, wounding a mother and her two children and prompting an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported. 4 more residential buildings were damaged by drone debris within the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, in line with local officials.
