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State Secretary Marco Rubio met on Monday with the officials of Saudi Arabia on the eve of planned conversations in the country between the Diplomats of the United States and their Russian colleagues who were to negotiate the stop of the Ukrainian war.
Rubio was joined by US national security adviser Michael Waltz and Steve Witkoff, an American special envoy in the Middle East, at a meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Salman at his palace in the capital of Riyadh. Rubio also met with Saudi Arabia Foreign Affairs Minister, Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud earlier on Monday after traveling to Riyadh from Israel during His first trip to the Middle East as the Secretary of State.
The conversations are scheduled For Tuesday in Saudi Arabia between the US -Ai Russia. Ukrainian officials are expected to be absent from the negotiating table.
Rubio, Waltz and Witkoff will meet with a Russian delegation, said a spokeswoman for State Department Tammy Bruce.
State Secretary Marco Rubio meets with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on February 17, 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s Foreign Affairs Advisor Yuri Ushakov embarked on Monday to the Saudi capital, according to Russian state TV.
Addressing journalists in Moscow on Monday, Lavrov said that he was looking forward to putting himself on the “absolutely abnormal period” alienation between the US -a -a Russia behind them, according to the Washington Post.
“We want to listen to our partners,” Lavrov said.
Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the conversations would be primarily focused on “renovating the entire range of American and Russian relations, as well as to prepare possible interviews about the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a meeting of two presidents.”
Bruce said the meeting was intended to determine how serious the Russians are in the fact that they want peace and whether detailed negotiations can start.
Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, receives State Secretary Marc Rubioa at the headquarters of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh, February 17, 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“I think the goal, obviously, is to determine if this is something that can move forward,” she told reporters traveling with Rubio in Riyadh, according to Associate Press.
Bruce said that although Ukraine would not be at the Tuesday Table Table, actual peace negotiations will only take place with Ukrainian involvement.
It is expected that talks on Tuesday will lay the foundation for Summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump said he was talking to Putin’s phone last week and “they agreed that our teams would immediately start negotiations.” The call has been undergoing American politics for years, ending the insulation of Moscow during February 24, 2022, an invasion of Ukraine. Trump then called Zelenskyy to inform him of their conversation.
Trump told reporters on Sunday that Zelenskyy “would be involved,” but did not work out.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has filed an emergency meeting between the major European forces in Paris on Monday to discuss conflict in Russia-Ukrain.
Talking about Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures”, Witkoff said he and Waltz “will have meetings in the direction of the president” and hope that “he will make some really good progress about Russia-Ukrain.”
Witkoff did not directly answer the question of whether Ukraine would have to give up on the “significant part of his territory as part of any negotiating settlement. Defense Minister Pete Hegsetth said last week that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested that Kiev should give up hope that he would beat all his territory from Russia.
The Ukrainian president said on Monday that his country was not invited to the upcoming conversations and would not accept the outcome if Kiev does not participate. Conversations in the US-Rusia “would not give results”, given the absence of any Ukrainian official, Zelenskyy said at a conference call with journalists from the United Arab Emirates, AP said. Zelenskyy said he would travel to Turkey on Monday and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, but that his journey was not related to talks in the US-Russia.
Rubio meets with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on February 17, 2025. On a separate couch, the waltz and the American charge of the Alison Dilworth affair. Witkoff, not in the picture, was on another couch in the room. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
In appearance at “Fox News Sunday”, Waltz rejected the idea that European allies do not advise the negotiations of stopping the war in Russia-Ukrain, noting that he ruined, Hegsetth, Vice-President JD Vance and Minister of the Scott Catott Beasent spent last week in last week in Europe of allies with allies. Bessent, in particular, traveled to Kiyiv, while Vance met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the Munich Safety Conference.
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Waltz said that one of the key tenants in the peacetime negotiations would provide a “permanent end of the war”, describing how the conflict switched “into the World War I meat grinder.” He said that long-term guarantees of military security must be led by Europe, criticizing that a third of NATO countries do not contribute to what they agreed a decade ago.
As for billions of US assistance sent to Ukraine during the Biden administration, Waltz said that the American people “deserves to be returned, deserves to have some kind of refund for the billions they invested in this war.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.
