Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to his Russian counterpart Saturday and key Trump administration officials will reportedly meet with a high-level Russian delegation in Saudi Arabia next week as the White House accelerates its push to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
The fast-moving developments around the world underscore just how serious President Trump is about quickly negotiating an end to the conflict, which is approaching its fourth year. Mr. Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance and other administration officials met Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
That meeting came amid confusion over the opening U.S. position heading into peace talks, specifically whether the Trump administration has already abandoned hope of Ukraine recapturing territory seized by Russian forces and whether Washington has ruled out Ukraine ever joining the NATO military alliance, a longtime goal for Kyiv.
Direct talks between the U.S. and Russia have alarmed leaders in Ukraine and across Europe who fear that the Trump administration intends to essentially freeze Ukraine out of any peace talks and instead negotiate unilaterally with Moscow. The direct talks began last week when Mr. Trump spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and reiterated his desire to end the war.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called an emergency meeting of European leaders in Paris Monday to discuss the fast-moving events and forge a united strategy for the continent’s major powers. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is traveling to Washington later this week for one-on-one talks with Mr. Trump, has confirmed he would attend the Paris meeting.
Mr. Rubio spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday, and the top U.S. diplomat “reaffirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine,” according to a State Department readout of the call.
Mr. Rubio, White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and other top administration officials are expected to travel to Saudi Arabia as soon as next week for meetings with key Russian officials, according to multiple media reports Sunday. That would mark the first in-person talks between the two global powers aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine.
For its part, the Kremlin celebrated the Trump administration’s approach.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that the Trump-Putin talks “send a powerful message that from now on we will try to solve problems through dialogue. And from now on we will talk about peace, not war.”
Although Mr. Trump had a lengthy call with Mr. Zelenskyy after his surprise talk with Mr. Putin last week, the U.S. seems to be putting pressure on Ukraine from multiple angles.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a gathering of NATO defense ministers last week that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to expect to get all of its territory back. And he indicated that Washington will not support Ukraine’s membership in NATO as part of current peace talks, though he later seemed to walk those comments back amid strong criticism, including from some high-ranking Republican senators.
The U.S. also reportedly presented Mr. Zelenskyy late last week with a plan for the U.S. to gain access to Ukraine’s supply of rare earth minerals in return for the massive military and financial aid Washington is providing in the war. The Ukrainian president said he rejected the plan.
“I didn’t let the ministers sign a relevant agreement because in my view it is not ready to protect us, our interest,” Mr. Zelenskyy told the Associated press at the Munich conference.
Amid the pressure on Ukraine, a key question now is what leverage the administration will try to wield over Russia. Retired U.S. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, offered some clues during his own comments in Munich over the weekend.
“What is driving Russia? It’s really a petrol state. Seventy percent of the money they are getting to fund this war is coming from petrol, oil and gas,” he said during a panel discussion at the conference, according to media reports.
“So what does [Mr. Putin] have to give up? Well, maybe he’ll give up his oil revenue and we’ll force him to do it, because what you do is start employing sanctions that break the economic back” of Russia, he said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.