The United States has said it sees “incredible opportunities” for potential co-operation with Russia once its war with Ukraine is over, after talks between Washington and Moscow on Ukraine’s future opened in Saudi Arabia.
Kyiv was not present at the talks and said it would reject any “ultimatums” or deals done behind its back.
Speaking after 4½ hours of talks in Riyadh, US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced a four-part agreement with Russia to guide the re-establishment of contacts that discontinued after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which began Europe’s biggest war in 80 years.
Should the conflict come to an “acceptable end”, he said,“incredible opportunities” existed “to partner with the Russians geopolitically, on issues of common interest and frankly, economically on issues that hopefully will be good for the world and also improve our relations in the long term”.
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He sought to offer reassurance to Ukraine after it was shaken last week by a surprise call between US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and US defence secretary Pete Hegseth told Kyiv not to expect to regain all occupied territory, join Nato or secure US peacekeepers under any peace deal.
“The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Mr Rubio said. “What that looks like – well, that’s what the ongoing engagement is going to be all about.”
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov described the talks as “very useful”, adding: “We did not just listen, but we heard each other. I have grounds to think that the American side has started to understand our position better.”
At the same time, he tried to quash a discussion among European leaders about potentially sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, which some European Union capitals see as a way to insert themselves into the US-Russian talks on the country’s future.
“We explained today that the appearance of troops ... from Nato countries but under some other flag, under the flag of the European Union or national flags, does not change anything and is, of course, unacceptable to us,” Mr Lavrov said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy held talks with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday and then announced that he would fly home rather than continue as planned to Saudi Arabia. He is expected to meet Keith Kellogg, Mr Trump’s special envoy for the Russian-Ukraine war, in Kyiv on Wednesday.
“We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia, it was a surprise for us ... We do not want anyone to decide anything behind our backs. I think this is fair,” Mr Zelenskiy said, noting that Moscow had given Kyiv many ultimatums in recent years.
“I have a sense that negotiations are taking place now with the same mood – this time between representatives of Russia and the United States; again about Ukraine, without Ukraine,” he said. “If we rejected ultimatums at the most difficult moment, I wonder why they think Ukraine would accept them now.”
Speaking in Dublin in advance of a Cabinet meeting where Ukraine was on the agenda, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said European states were worried about the “direction of travel” of the negotiations.
“Europe will have to be at the talks because a peace agreement will not work without European participation to some degree and at some stage,” he said. “The fundamental point in any peace deal is it has to be sustainable and it has to be durable.”
Mr Martin said everybody wanted the war to end. “It is a horrible war. Hundreds of thousands of young people have lost their lives ... If we can get a sustainable peace that would be good for everybody but Ukraine has to be at the heart of it. There cannot really be a peace deal without Ukraine.”
