ꦚSenior Russian and U.S. officials gathered in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to commence discussions on enhancing relations and negotiating a resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.
🌠The meeting at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh marks another essential step by the Trump administration to reverse US policy on isolating Russia and is meant to pave the way for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
༺Earlier this month, Trump disrupted U.S. policy on Ukraine and Russia by stating that he and Putin had reached an agreement to start talks on ending the conflict.
💖Ukrainian officials aren't taking part in the meeting, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that his country won't accept the outcome if Kyiv doesn't take part.
🅷Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov arrived in the Saudi capital on Monday night. Ushakov said the talks would be “purely bilateral” and would not include Ukrainian officials.
☂US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will meet the Russian delegation, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
𝓀The discussions represent a major escalation of U.S.-Russian interactions nearly three years into a conflict that has driven relations to their lowest point in decades.
ꦆLavrov and then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, US and Russian spymasters met in Turkiye amid Washington's concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks.
𒁃The recent US diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Kyiv and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won't be favourable to them.
France convened an urgent meeting ꧙of European Union nations and the UK on Monday to determine how to react.
🔯Before the discussions, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, whom the Kremlin indicated might participate in the meeting, emphasized the significance of the gathering in remarks to The Associated Press.
🌌“Strong US-Russia relations are crucial for the entire world. Only together can Russia and the US tackle numerous global challenges, resolve international conflicts, and provide solutions," Dmitriev, who mentioned that he and his team would concentrate on economic matters during the talks, told AP.
♛The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya, citing the Russian delegation, described Moscow's priority as “real normalization with Washington”.
🅠Diriyah Palace sits across the street from Riyadh's Diplomatic Quarter. It's also just next to the Ritz Carlton hotel, which became famous in 2017 after de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman detained other princes and the country's elite there as part of what the royal court called a crackdown on corruption, which also sidelined any possible challenge to his taking control of the kingdom.
Hosting the talks is a major step toward a goal Prince Mohammed has pursued throughout the war — putting the kingdom in the middle of diplomatic negotiations. It has helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ꦰfor an Arab League summit in the kingdom in 2023. Zelenskyy will likely travel to Saudi Arabia later this week.
For Prince Mohammed, once described as a “pariah” by former President Joe Biden 🀅over the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, hosting such talks burnish the otherwise-tarnished image the West has for him.
🌌Ahead of the summit, the Saudi daily newspaper Okaz described the moment as the “world's eye on Riyadh”.
Writing in the London-based but Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, journalist Mishari al-Dhaidi described the summit as "a major step on the international political chess ▨arena, revealing the status of Saudi Arabia and its positive influence for the benefit of the people all the people,” he wrote.
🐬In the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince also has maintained close relations with Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, both through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well.
Hosting the summit also serves to counter the strong criticism recently directed at President Donald Trump ♚by the kingdom's tightly controlled media, following his repeated statements that he wants the U.S. to "take control" of the Gaza Strip, which has been severely impacted by the Israeli military assault since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank for a future state, something assisted by the wider Arab world and nearly all of the international community.
(With AP Inputs)
