Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday in the hopes of undergoing negotiations over wars in Ukraine and Gaza, without any participation from European leaders or Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Rubio was expected to meet with Kremlin officials in Riyadh to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war and its future, joined by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz and U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lead spokesman Dmitry Peskov said its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, who leads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, will be part of Moscow’s team.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is currently in the neighboring United Arab Emirates on a scheduled trip to boost humanitarian support for Ukraine, had previously stated that his country will not consider a peace deal where it was not included in the negotiations. Zelenskyy told NBC News that he would “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine,” adding there is not “any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us about us.”
Meanwhile, European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris on Monday after the Trump administration said they would be excluded from talks with Russia to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. The leaders of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the European Union met at Paris’ Elysee Palace for the talks on the continent’s security quandary. NATO secretary general Mark Rutte also attended.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said in a statement that the gathering of several key European leaders aimed to address “the situation in Ukraine and security issues in Europe” by “bringing together all the partners interested in peace and security” in the region.
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