US, Russia meet to work towards ending Ukraine war, Kyiv not present in talks
As the Russia-Ukraine war approaches its three-year mark, the US and Russia held a significant meeting in Riyadh to discuss peace and strengthen ties.
The United States and Russia held a high-level meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday, agreeing to work towards ending the Ukraine war and establishing better diplomatic and economic ties. The meeting comes at a time when the conflict in Ukraine is nearing its three-year anniversary.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s minister of foreign affairs Sergey Lavrov attested to this after the meeting.
Also read: ‘Russia ready to end barbarianism’ says Donald Trump amid talks on Ukraine war
After the meeting, Rubio told AP that the Russia and US agreed to focus on and achieve three main goals- restoring staffing at their respective embassies in both countries, creating a high-level team to work toward Ukraine peace talks, and exploring closer relations and economic cooperation.
Lavrov also called the conversation “very useful” and said, “We not only listened, but also heard each other.”
“I have reason to believe that the American side has started to better understand our position,” he added.
The meeting, which aimed to promote peace in Ukraine, had no representative from the country. This marks a big diplomatic shift in US’ handling of the war under the Trump administration, as Ukraine’s participation in such talks was imperative under Biden's watch. Ukraine’s President Zelensky also said that the country will not agree to the outcome of the talks since they did not participate in them.
What Donald Trump said
After the meeting, Donald Trump also said that Russia wants to end “barbarianism” going on its war with Ukraine. “Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the barbarianism that's going on over there. Soldiers are being killed by thousands on a weekly basis. Apart from Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, a lot of Koreans have been killed. We want to end it,” he said during a press conference from the White House.
He also pinned some blame on Ukraine for not ending the war sooner and said the “senseless” war would not have erupted had he been the President. “Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years…You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” AP quoted him as saying.
Trump also said that he might meet his Russian counterpart Putin later this month, however, no date has been decided yet for a summit between them.