Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterparts in Riyadh on Tuesday talks with the US with a country that ends the isolation policy imposed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 showed a major change.
US and Russian officials have no concrete commitments to end Russian wars in Ukraine, but have left the meeting indicating a reset of bilateral relations.
“It was positive, cheerful, constructive, solution-based, to ensure that everyone there was reaching the right outcome,” said Steve Witkoff, President Trump's Middle East envoy.
“I couldn't imagine a better outcome after this session. It was very solid.”
Trump told reporters later Wednesday that talks were on track and assaulted him in Ukraine for demanding a seat at a table.
“I've heard they're angry that they don't have seats. They had seats for a long time for three years before that. This could have been very easy to solve,” he said. said.
“You probably never started it,” he said of Ukraine at another point.
Here are five things you need to know about the first round of US Russia's talk:
A trio of Trump diplomats join two Russians at the table
Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Witkoff were the principals of the US table.
The White House says he is involved, but General Keith Kellogg (ret.) Keith Kellogg, the official Trump envoy to end the Ukrainian war, was significantly absent.
On the Russian side were Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was previously the ambassador to Moscow in Washington.
Kiril Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, was also in Riyadh, but was not present in the photos from his main speech on Tuesday.
“Dmitriev is a family friend and he is very close to one of Putin's daughters,” said Sam Green, director of democratic resilience at the European Centre for Policy Analysis.
“If anything, I think he has Putin's inherently trusted eyes and ears in the conversation, so that people like Ushakov and Lavrov don't start freelance. ”
Ukrainian President Voldymir Zelensky, who was not invited to talks, postponed a planned trip to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. He criticizes the US-Russia discussions, urging Europe to demand seats at the table, and arguing that the war cannot be ended without Ukraine.
“Ukraine, Europe, in the broad sense – this includes the European Union, Türkiye, and [United Kingdom] – We need to be involved in the conversation and the development of necessary security assurances with America regarding our destiny of the world.” Zelensky He told reporters in Ankara.
Rubio said no one was a “byssistance,” and Waltz described the US-Russia discussion as “shuttle diplomacy.”
Following the meeting in Riyadh, Rubio spoke with foreign ministers from France, Germany, Italy and the UK, as well as senior officials of the EU's diplomatic representatives.
“We will continue to push back this notion that our allies are not consulted,” Waltz said. “They are literally consulted almost every day. And we continue to do so.”
Trump and Putin are hoping to meet, Waltz said, but no dates have been set yet.
We and Russia will restore staffing at the embassy
Rubio said the US and Russia will move quickly to restore staffing on their respective missions of countries, which have been reduced to much of recent tensions, including the Ukrainian war and allegations of spying.
“If our diplomatic channels are broken, it will be very difficult to engage in many topics consistently, including some unrelated stimuli that could derail the broader talks on Ukraine. It's probably,” he said.
It is not clear to what extent the embassy operation will be restored. Lynn Tracy is Moscow's current US ambassador and was appointed and confirmed during the Biden administration. The US consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg were suspended in 2021 and 2020, respectively, but these are not expected to resume.
In response to the Russian Ukraine's full-scale invasion, the former Biden administration was expelledAt least 12 Russian officialsHe works on Russia's mission to the United Nations. The US accused these Russians of using diplomatic cover to protect the work of intelligence.
October 2023, the US Two diplomats were expelled In retaliation by the Kremlin to expel two American diplomats from Moscow.
The Biden administration also expelled Russian diplomats in 2021 in response to Solar Winds Hack, a massive Russian intelligence violation in the US federal system.
The Kremlin recently released at least two Americans in what the US called a “welcome gesture,” but it is unclear whether the US concessions were made in exchange. Last week, the White House denounced Russian Moneylander Alexander Vinnik in exchange for the release of American Mark Vogel in Moscow.
The State Department advocates the release of two other Americans in Russia.
Both sides will appoint high-level teams to negotiate
Rubio said a “high-level” team has been appointed for an ongoing lecture and will involve Russian sides, including technical topic experts, on parameters to end the war.
He said involvement and consultations will be made with Ukraine, American partners in Europe and others.
“But in the end there is. The Russian side is crucial to this effort and the process will begin,” Rubio said.
The secretary said the goal was to negotiate the end of the Russian war in Ukraine.
It is not yet clear whether Ukrainians will form a “high-level” team. Zelensky called on Europe to nominate envoys for peace negotiations. Rubio said the European Union would eventually have to sit at the table, leading to a debate that could lift sanctions against Russia.
No details on concessions
The Waltz only provided vague outlines of what the concessions looked like.
“We're saying that in real life, there's a discussion about territory and a discussion about security assurance,” he said.
Russia accounts for about 20% of Ukraine's territory. In 2014, it annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula and claimed control of four regions in Ukraine.
Zelensky proposed a territorial swap last year after controlling for a small pocket of Russian territory in Kursk Oblast. The discussion about security assurances in Ukraine is ongoing. The United States shows that it hopes that Europe will take the lead in military presence around Ukraine after the war, but Britain is willing to send its troops as a peacekeeping force. Ta.
Kiev and its most fierce supporters want Ukraine in NATO, claiming it is the best deterrent against a new Russian aggression. However, the Trump administration has signalled that it won't happen, pointing out that Russia sees NATO's neighbors as an existential threat.
Green, a native of CEPA, said the lack of details coming out of the meeting was encouraging. This is because it suggests that we and the Russian authorities have not reached an agreement on substantial issues that harm the interests of Ukraine or Europe.
“I think it's cautious and not eschatological, but beyond that, we simply don't know much,” he said.
Plans to investigate post-war cooperation
Rubio said the US and Russia would like to engage “at a high level” to talk about potential cooperation between the countries after the “end of the conflict in Ukraine.”
Economic cooperation was featured in Rubio's comments. USThere are thousands of sanctionsIn Russia, Russian rank and file against President Putin, top officials, involved in illegal activities, blacklisting Russian banks, banning certain exports to Russia, and blocking imports to the US In Russia, the scope of people
US and Russian officials did not elaborate on the details of consultations on potential cooperation.
However, Europe holds around $300 billion in Russian assets that have been frozen in the wake of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The US holds approximately $5 billion. Europe and the US have passed laws that will use revenue from frozen funds to serve as war reparations for Ukrainians, but Ukrainian officials will need to be done to access the full amount of Russia I say that.
Another area of possible US-Russia cooperation is the nuclear non-proliferation talks. Trump has proposed three-way nuclear weapons talks between the US, Russia and China. Russia and the United States are in a stalemate in enforcement of a major nuclear weapons treaty, which is due to expire in 2026.
“People who are trying to understand how or where you need to engage in damage control in Kyiv, Europe, or in fact in Washington should probably pay too much attention to the optics and warm fuzzies coming out of Riyadh. I think so, and then see if there's any movement towards something substantial,” Green said.
“But at this point, I'm not actually seeing anything substantial. I'm taking it as my good news for the day.”
