High-level U.S. and Russian officials are set to meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for the first direct talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
President Trump’s fast-moving and norm-shattering brand of diplomacy has brought the two adversaries together with remarkable speed while Kyiv watches from the sidelines and European allies struggle to find their footing.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff will lead the U.S. delegation. They will meet with a Russian team led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Riyadh. State-run media stressed that the Russian delegation will have a direct line to President Vladimir Putin during the talks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected the idea of a ceasefire agreement negotiated without Kyiv at the table. Mr. Zelenskyy and other European leaders seemed to operate Monday on parallel but distinctly separate tracks. Mr. Zelenskyy embarked on a foreign trip, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he is prepared to send British troops to Ukraine as part of an international peacekeeping force.
European leaders held an “emergency meeting” in Paris, a clear if unspoken acknowledgment that they risk being reduced to bystanders as Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin and their respective teams plot a potential end to the war, now nearing its fourth year.
Some fear Mr. Trump’s team has tipped its hand before the talks.
Speaking in Brussels last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Ukraine should not expect to recover all the territory it has lost to Russia, nor should it join NATO as part of peace talks. He walked back some of those comments after harsh criticism, including from some high-level Republicans.
Analysts say the U.S.-Russia talks indicate Mr. Trump’s broader approach to diplomacy: high risk and equally high reward, with the potential for game-changing progress and calamitous consequences.
Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, likened the forthcoming U.S.-Russia negotiations in some respects to Mr. Trump’s in-person meetings during his first term with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The meetings ultimately did not produce a U.S.-North Korea deal but represented a radical departure from years of a more mainstream American diplomatic approach.
“They are both promising and dangerous, not unlike Trump’s earlier diplomacy with Kim Jong-un. They could produce a good deal, a bad deal or no deal. Time will tell,” Mr. O’Hanlon told The Washington Times on Monday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the talks will focus on “restoring the entire range of U.S.-Russian relations, as well as preparing possible talks on the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a meeting of the two presidents.” Russian officials have stressed that issues beyond the war in Ukraine will be discussed and have touted the talks as proof that Western efforts to isolate the Kremlin on the global stage have collapsed with Mr. Trump’s election.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce indicated that the talks are a first step in what could be a lengthy process. Speaking to reporters as she and Mr. Rubio traveled to Riyadh, she said both sides share a goal “to determine if this is something that can move forward.”
Ukraine, Europe sidelined?
Ms. Bruce echoed a point that Mr. Rubio repeated during a Sunday media blitz: Just because Ukraine is not represented at this first round of talks does not mean Kyiv will be frozen out entirely. Quite the contrary, Mr. Rubio said.
“One phone call does not solve a war as complex as this one,” Mr. Rubio told CBS’s “Face the Nation” program, referring to the call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin that kick-started the talks last week. Russian forces occupy nearly one-fifth of Ukraine’s prewar territory, although Mr. Putin’s early goal of toppling the Ukrainian government has failed.
“Ultimately, it will reach a point when Europe, if it’s real negotiations, and we’re not there yet, but if that were to happen, Ukraine will have to be involved because they were the ones who were invaded,” he said. “And the Europeans will have to be involved in it because they have [economic] sanctions on Putin and Russia as well, and they’ve contributed to this effort. We’re not there yet.”
Neither Ukraine nor other European powers appear to have much influence over the talks.
Mr. Zelenskyy was scheduled to travel to Turkey on Monday and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, though those trips are reportedly unrelated to the U.S.-Russia talks. On Monday, the Ukrainian president acknowledged in Kyiv how rapidly the situation is unfolding.
“Negotiations are moving fast with Europe,” he said in a virtual news conference. “Everyone told me that what happened [at the Munich Security Conference last week] accelerated everything.”
Mr. Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly spoke by phone Monday before the European leaders’ emergency summit, which the French leader organized and hosted.
That meeting reportedly included officials from Britain, Germany, Italy, France and other nations, representatives from the European Union and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
The biggest news arrived before the meeting when Mr. Starmer announced that his nation was prepared to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.
“We are facing a once-in-a-generation for the collective security of our continent. This is not only a question about the future of Ukraine, it is existential for Europe as a whole,” Mr. Starmer wrote in an article for the British newspaper The Telegraph. “Securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards the sovereignty for the long term is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future.
“I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way. But any role in helping guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent and the security of this country,” Mr. Starmer wrote.
It’s unclear what such a peacekeeping force might look like or whether it is part of any ceasefire deal. In his remarks last week, Mr. Hegseth said the U.S. won’t send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. He said European forces who deploy there may not be protected by NATO’s Article 5, the provision of a “collective defense” if one member nation is attacked.
• Mike Glenn contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.