Russian President Vladimir Putin has dispatched a group of senior officials to Saudi Arabia for meetings with the U.S. about a potential peace deal for Ukraine, the Kremlin announced Monday.
The officials, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, will meet with U.S. counterparts on Tuesday. The groups plan to discuss a restoration of diplomatic ties between Washington and Moscow, as well as a Ukrainian peace deal and a potential meeting between President Donald Trump and Putin.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead the U.S. delegation, accompanied by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and national security adviser Mike Waltz, the state department confirmed Monday.
The meeting comes just days after Trump revealed he had spoken to Putin in a phone call last week. Trump said he and Putin “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met the effort with skepticism, urging Trump not to trust Putin in a separate call last week.
“I said that [Putin] is a liar,” Zelenskyy recounted of his phone call to Trump. “And he said, ‘I think my feeling is that he’s ready for these negotiations.’ And I said to him, ‘No, he’s a liar. He doesn’t want any peace.'”
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Zelenskyy nevertheless said he believes Putin is a “little bit scared” of Trump.
Trump’s representatives have declined to offer details about the negotiations, such as whether the U.S. would support a deal where Ukraine is forced to give up a sizable amount of its pre-war territory.
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“Those are details, and I’m not dismissive of the details, they’re important. But I think the beginning here is trust-building. It’s getting everybody to understand that this war does not belong continuing, that it should end. That’s what the president has directed us to do,” Witkoff told Fox News on Sunday.
Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer has confirmed that he is willing to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine to ensure its security as part of a peace deal.
“I do not say that lightly,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. “I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way.”
“But any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent, and the security of this country,” he added.
Zelenskyy added in his interview that he will not accept any negotiation hashed out by just the U.S. and Russia.
“I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never.… The war in Ukraine is against us, and it is our human losses. And we are thankful for all the support, unity between U.S.A. – in U.S.A. around Ukraine support, bipartisan unity, bipartisan support, we’re thankful for all of this. But there is no… leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us about us,” he said.
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