US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a "positive, constructive dialogue" in Riyadh. Putin is interested in ending the war in Ukraine
High officials Russia i of the United States of America held the first meeting in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where they talked about improving relations and ending the war in Ukraine.
"Positive, constructive dialogue," was how Russian official Kirill Dmitriev described the four-hour talks between the Moscow and Washington delegations.
After today's meeting, the US and Russia agreed to appoint "high-level teams" to begin working towards an end to the war in Ukraine, the US State Department announced.
The US and Russian delegations have agreed to address bilateral relations in order to take the necessary steps to normalize the work of diplomatic missions, said US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce after the talks in Riyadh.
The two sides also agreed to appoint high-level teams for negotiations on Ukraine, "working towards an end to the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a manner that is durable, sustainable and acceptable to all parties," she said.
The US and Russia will also begin to consider "future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and the historic economic and investment opportunities that will arise from a successful end to the conflict in Ukraine," she added.
While the negotiations were underway, news came from the Kremlin that Russian President Vladimir Putin was seriously interested in ending the war.
A step towards cooperation between the USA and Russia
The meeting between US and Russian officials is another step forward by the Trump administration to reverse the current US policy of isolating Russia and should pave the way for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
The State Department announced before the meeting that the conversation in Riyadh is the first step that will show whether Russia is serious about ending the war, while Moscow states that the goal is the normalization of relations with America, which, together with the European Union, imposed a series of sanctions on it after the invasion of Ukraine.
"Unlike the Biden administration, which never tried to hear Russia's position, this was a very clear attempt to start a dialogue, understand Russia's position and talk about things we agree on. There are many points on which we agree... we got to know each other much better... now we understand each other much better," Kirill Dmitriev said after the meeting.
Yuri Ushakov, assistant to the President of Russia, said on Russian state television about the talks: "It's not bad. It's hard to say whether [Russia and the US] are getting closer, but we've talked about it.
"We agreed to take care of each other's interests and to develop bilateral relations, as both Moscow and Washington are interested in that."
Ushakov mentioned the possibility of a meeting between the presidents of the USA and Russia next week.
"A special team of negotiators will make contact in due course," he said.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier that Kiev will not participate in the negotiations on ending the war, because they were not invited to those talks, nor will they accept any outcome of the negotiations that will take place without Ukraine. He is currently visiting Turkey, where he will hold talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Putin is seriously interested in negotiations and ending the war
The Kremlin announced on Tuesday (February 18) that Russian President Vladimir Putin is seriously interested in negotiations and ending the war in Ukraine, and that Moscow would like to achieve all its goals peacefully.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that since the beginning of the conflict, Putin has repeated several times that he is ready for peace talks, reports Reuters.
"The most important thing for us is to achieve our goals. Of course, we give preference to peaceful means to achieve those goals," Peskov told reporters.
Peskov stated that the date of the meeting between Putin and US President Donald Trump has not been determined, but that today's meeting in Riyadh of the delegations of Russia and the United States of America could clarify it.
America first
If, however, Trump cancels financial and military aid to Ukraine, it would force Kiev to make painful compromises that have been rejected so far because they would essentially be a recognition of Russia's victory.
The position of Republicans close to Trump is that America should not pay billions for a war that is outside their sphere of interest, that it is a European problem, that Russia has the GDP of Italy, and that Europeans can handle the support that Kiev needs on their own.
The rationale is that every dollar spent in Ukraine is a dollar less for the American military presence in the Pacific, and in the conflict with China for the primacy of the global superpower, the Pacific region is a foreign policy priority of the United States.
Even during his first presidential term, Trump showed that he was not interested in the needs of traditional American allies, and from the first day of his second entry into the White House, he made it known to the Europeans that he would "put them in their place", that they did not expect any leniency from him and some sort of allied policy alignment.
Along with Rubio, the US delegation includes Middle East envoy Steve Witkow and White House security adviser Mike Waltz.
Along with Lavrov, the Russian delegation includes presidential assistant Yuriy Ushakov and head of the state fund Kirill Dimityev.
Renewal of US-Russia relations
The talks mark a significant expansion of U.S.-Russian contacts nearly three years after the start of a war in which ties have sunk to their lowest level in decades.
The meeting takes place less than a month after Donald Trump took office as US president in January and represents a significant departure from Washington's position during the Joe Biden administration that there would be no concessions in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Trump said earlier that he and Putin had agreed to begin negotiations to end the war.
The Kremlin indicated that the talks will cover "a number of topics in Russian-American relations", as well as a possible solution to the war in Ukraine and the meeting of the two presidents.
Russia said Lavrov and Rubio had already discussed removing barriers to trade and investment between the two countries on Saturday (February 15th).
Exiled EU
The leaders of the member states of the European Union and Great Britain held an emergency summit on Monday (February 17), and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that without them no decisions should be made on ending the war in Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he spoke by phone with Trump and Zelensky.
"We seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine," Macron wrote on the X network.
"In order to achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for Ukrainians," he wrote and promised to "work on this together with all Europeans, Americans and Ukrainians."
Russia, which occupied parts of Ukraine in 2014, launched a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
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