A three-point plan has emerged from talks between the United States and Russia with an aim of improving relations and ending the Ukraine war.
There has been plenty of concern from America’s Western allies over how the Trump administration has gone ahead with talks without Ukraine. It led to France calling an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the UK on Monday.
But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the talks were just the start of dialogue, adding that Russia and the US agreed on Tuesday to start working towards ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties. Rubio, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov in Riyadh.
And Rubio said the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.
He also stressed the talks marked the beginning of a conversation, and more work needs to be done. Lavrov echoed Rubio’s remarks and told reporters that “the conversation was very useful”. He added: “We not only listened, but also heard each other.”
The meeting took place as a beleaguered Ukraine is slowly but steadily losing ground against Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country would not accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn’t take part, and he postponed his own trip to the kingdom scheduled for Wednesday.
Ties between Russia and the US had fallen to their lowest level in decades in recent years — a rift that has been widening ever since Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and only worsened after Moscow’s full-scale invasion. The US, along with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia in an effort to damage its economy. And embassies in Washington and Moscow have been hit hard by expulsions of large numbers of diplomats, as well as other restrictions.
Rubio said ending the war in Ukraine could “unlock the door” for “incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians geopolitically on issues of common interest and, frankly, economically on issues that hopefully will be good for the world and also improve our relations in the long term”.
His comments were further evidence of the remarkable US reversal on Russia after years in which Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, led international efforts to isolate Moscow. Tuesday’s meeting was meant to pave the way for a summit between Trump and Putin. After the talks ended, Ushakov and Waltz said no date has been set yet for that summit.
Ushakov told Russian television that a meeting was “unlikely” to take place next week, while Waltz said he thought it could be arranged in the coming weeks. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Lavrov mentioned the same three goals as Rubio and said that Washington and Moscow agreed to appoint representatives to carry out “regular consultations” on Ukraine.
“I have reason to believe that the American side has started to better understand our position” the Russian foreign minister said. Witkoff said the meeting was “positive, upbeat, constructive. Everybody was there to get to the right outcome.”
The meeting marked the most extensive contact between the two countries since Moscow’s February 24, 2022, invasion. Lavrov and then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, but tensions remained high.
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
