U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin have initiated peace talks to end the Ukraine war. This follows Trump’s conversation with Putin last Wednesday about a peaceful resolution to the war.
The move has been made without the presence of any European allies or Ukrainian officials.
Today’s meeting took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the discussions covered four principles: reestablishing embassies in their respective capitals, the US appointing a high-level team to help end the war in Ukraine, initiating discussions on “geopolitical and economic cooperation,” and ensuring that all parties are progressing towards peace.
US and Russia seek to end the Ukraine war
This is historic !!
I don’t recall seeing such high level sit down between US 🇺🇸 and Russia 🇷🇺
Ukraine war MUST end
Well done Team President Trump and President Putin
Congrats to our brothers in KSA 🇸🇦 pic.twitter.com/6HXBKw0wob
— حسن سجواني 🇦🇪 Hassan Sajwani (@HSajwanization) February 18, 2025
Despite statements Rubio made asserting that Europe and Ukraine will be part of ‘real’ peace talks, neither attended the talks conducted in Riyadh. In response to being asked about the presence of the two entities after the meeting, Rubio stated that the world “should be thanking President Trump” for his efforts to make the talks happen in the first place.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that a main point of the call between Putin and Trump on Wednesday was ending an “abnormal period in the relations between two great powers [The US and Russia].”
Aside from some comments from both sides vaguely alluding to what occurred at the meeting, it is believed that this will be the first of many talks related to improving relations between Russia and the US and ending the war in Ukraine. On Russia’s end, they lauded President Trump’s understanding of why the war, according to them, is occurring.
“We explained to our today’s interlocutors that we very carefully noted that President Trump on several occasions had been the first of all Western leaders who said that dragging Ukraine into NATO was one of the main reasons of what is going on,” said Lavrov.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed his dissatisfaction with being excluded from discussions concerning his own nation, consequently delaying his planned flight to Saudi Arabia to undercut the legitimacy of the meeting.
“We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us. I think it was a surprise for many people,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference in Turkey’s capital Ankara, after the US-Russia peace talks finished in Riyadh.
Zelenskyy further emphasized that he wished for “fair” peace talks, saying that today’s meeting was “taking place between representatives of Russia and representatives of the United States of America. About Ukraine—about Ukraine again—and without Ukraine.”
Several EU officials have criticized the talks between the US and Russia, but Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said in a live stream on his Facebook page, “Today, in Paris, pro-war, anti-Trump, frustrated European leaders are gathering to prevent a peace agreement in Ukraine.”