JEDDAH (Reuters) – Ukrainian and U.S. officials held crunch talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to find a path towards ending the war with Russia, hours after Kyiv’s forces launched their largest drone attack on Moscow to date.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hopes the meeting in Jeddah will revive “pragmatic” U.S. ties after his disastrous talks with U.S. President Donald Trump last month and he has suggested an initial truce with Russia in the air and at sea.
The proposal is aimed at demonstrating he is working towards Trump’s objective to end the war at lightning speed, after the U.S. president accused the Ukrainian leader of not being ready for peace and pressed ahead with direct talks with Russia.
“The meeting has begun very constructively,” Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff who is leading the Ukrainian delegation, wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine‘s anxious European allies are watching for any sign of an improvement, or further deterioration, in Kyiv’s relations with Trump’s Washington, which has upended U.S. policy on the war and piled pressure on Ukraine.
In particular, the United States has stopped military assistance and paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Trump on Monday that he hoped those moves could be reversed as a result of the talks.
“Dear Americans, dear Ukrainians, don’t waste this chance. The whole world is watching you in Jeddah today. Good luck!” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X.
THREE DEAD DRONE ATTACK ON MOSCOW
Ukraine overnight launched its biggest drone attack on Moscow yet, deploying at least 91 drones, killing at least three people, sparking fires, closing airports and forcing dozens of flights to be diverted, Russian officials said.
The strike – in which 337 drones were downed over Russia, according to Moscow – appeared aimed at showing Kyiv can also land major blows after a steady stream of Russian missile and drone attacks, one of which killed 14 people on Saturday.
It comes as Zelenskiy has been calling on his European allies to support the air and sea truce idea that he says would be a chance to test Moscow’s willingness to end the war.
As the diplomacy plays out, Ukraine‘s battlefield positions are under heavy pressure, particularly in Russia’s Kursk region where Moscow’s forces have launched a push to flush out Kyiv’s troops, which had been trying to hold a patch of land as a bargaining chip.
Zelenskiy’s Oval Office clash with Trump left the signing of a bilateral minerals deal in limbo and Kyiv’s bid to obtain security guarantees from Washington adrift.
Trump has framed the deal, which is set to be discussed on Tuesday, as key to continued U.S. support and compensation for many billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded three years ago.
Ahead of the talks, Yermak told reporters that security guarantees remained key for Ukraine, but suggested they might only look at that in a preliminary way on Tuesday.
“Most important is how to start this process and we are very open,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday en route to Jeddah that the talks with Kyiv would be important to gauge if Ukraine is willing to make concessions to reach peace.
“We have to understand the Ukrainian position and just have a general idea of what concessions they’d be willing to make, because you’re not going to get a ceasefire and an end to this war unless both sides make concessions,” he said.
The top U.S. diplomat is being joined at the talks by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Zelenskiy, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is not joining the talks.
Trump’s Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who has been drafted into Ukraine diplomacy, said he was hopeful the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal would be signed soon.
Witkoff plans to visit Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin, a person briefed on the plans said on Monday.
CEDING TERRITORY?
Ukraine‘s European allies argue that Kyiv can only negotiate a peace deal with Russia from a position of strength and that it should not be rushed to the bargaining table with an aggressor.
Zelenskiy has said that Putin does not want peace and warned that Russia could attack other European countries if its invasion of Ukraine does not result in a clear defeat.
Rubio declined on Monday to specify concessions each side would have to make but said Kyiv would have difficulty reclaiming all of its lost territory.
Russia holds around a fifth of Ukraine‘s territory, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and its troops are pressing on the eastern Donetsk region.
U.S. and Russian officials met in the Saudi capital in February in a rare encounter between the former Cold War foes. The discussions were focused largely on restoring ties after a near-total freeze on official contact under former U.S. President Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Pesha Magid; Additional reporting by Anastasiia Malenko; Writing by David Brunnstrom and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Humeyra Pamuk, Cynthia Osterman and Sharon Singleton)
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