American and Russian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia in the next few days to begin conversations aimed at ending the war of almost three years of Moscow in Ukraine, an American legislator and a source familiar with planning on Saturday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who met with the United States vice president, JD Vance, in Germany, said Ukraine was not invited to conversations in Saudi Arabia and kyiv would not get involved with Russia before consulting with strategic partners.
The Secretary of State for the United States, Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and the envoy of the Middle East of the White House, Steve Witkoff, will travel to Saudi Arabia, said American representative Michael McCaul Reuters. It was not clear immediately who would find Russia.
Apart from the Munich Security Conference, McCaul said that the objective of the conversations was to organize a meeting between the president of the United States, Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy “to finally bring peace and end this conflict” .
A source with knowledge of the plans confirmed the planned conversations in Saudi Arabia among American and Russian officials. The United States Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
But Rubio had already visited Saudi Arabia as part of his first tour of the Middle East, which began yesterday when he arrived in Israel, a AFP Informed journalist.
Rubio earlier on Saturday received a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, in which “President Trump reaffirmed to find an end to the conflict in Ukraine,” said the State Department.
They agreed regular contacts to prepare for a meeting between Putin and Trump, said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The former real estate developer Witkoff was very involved in a prisoner exchange agreement earlier this week that paved the way for the call between Trump and Putin.
Witkoff even traveled to Moscow to bring home to the detainee Marc Fogel.
In a publication in the social networks that announced Putin’s call earlier this week, Trump had said that he had commissioned Rubio, Waltz, Witkoff and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Ratcliffe to get to work immediately in an agreement with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump, who assumed the position on January 20, has repeatedly promised to quickly end the Ukraine War. He made telephone calls separately to Putin and Zelenskiy on Wednesday, leaving Washington European alarmed Washington that would be eliminated from any peace process.
These fears were largely confirmed on Saturday when Trump’s envoy said Europe will not have a seat at the table, after Washington sent a questionnaire to the European capitals to ask what they could contribute to the security guarantees for Kyiv .
Mineral treatment
Zelenskiy said Friday that he would visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi and Turkiye Arabia, but did not say when. However, the Ukrainian leader said he had no plans to meet with American or Russian officials during those visits.
Moscow controls a fifth of Ukraine and has been slowly moving forward in the East for months, while the smallest kyiv army fights with a shortage of labor and tries to have a part of territory in western Russia.
Russia has demanded that Kyiv yields territory and becomes permanently neutral under any peace agreement. Ukraine demands that Russia be removed from the captured earth and wants NATO membership or equivalent security guarantees to avoid Moscow’s attack.
The United States and Europe have given Ukraine tens of billions of dollars in military aid since the war began. Trump has said that he supports Ukraine, but is looking for security for US funds for kyiv.
Currently, the United States and Ukraine are negotiating an agreement that could open the vast natural wealth of Ukraine to US investment. Three sources said that the United States proposed to take possession of 50 percent of the critical minerals of Ukraine. Zelenskiy said on Saturday that the draft agreement did not contain the security provisions that Kyiv needed.
