Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has deputed his foreign minister and a senior Kremlin adviser to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with U.S. officials on restoring relations and potential negotiations to end the Ukraine war, the Kremlin stated on Monday.
U.S. President Donald Trump said after a call with Putin on Wednesday that they would begin talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine immediately and that they had also discussed the Middle East, energy, the U.S. dollar and Artificial Intelligence.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is due in Saudi Arabia to meet officials from Russia alongside Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, and Steve Witkoff, White House Middle East envoy.
Rubio Reaches Riyadh
Rubio arrived in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Monday to hold Ukraine negotiation talks, which came after President Donald Trump last week spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone and ordered top officials to begin negotiations on the Ukraine war, which he repeatedly vowed to end during his presidential campaign.
Riyadh, which is also involved in talks with Washington over the future of the Gaza Strip, has played a role in early contacts between the Trump administration, which took office on January 20, and Moscow, helping to secure a prisoner swap last week.
Russian Officials On The Way
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Sergei Lavrov, Putin’s foreign minister since 2004, and Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin foreign policy advisor, were flying to Riyadh at the request of Putin.
“They are expected to hold a meeting with their American counterparts on Tuesday, which will focus primarily on restoring the entire complex of Russian-American relations,” Peskov said.
“It will also be devoted to the preparation of possible negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement and the organisation of a meeting between the two presidents.”
Peskov declined to comment on a Reuters report that Kirill Dmitriev, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund chief, would also meet the U.S. delegation.
He also declined to comment when asked if Putin and Trump would meet face-to-face in Saudi Arabia later this month.
(With inputs from Reuters)
