U.S. And Russia Take ‘First Step’ With ‘Very Useful’ Ukraine War Talks, Agree Trump-Putin Meeting to Come
Russia praised the first round of Ukraine war talks with the United States as “very useful”, while the American delegation said both sides had committed to “make sure the process moves forward in a timely and productive manner” and will work towards a Presidential meeting soon.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for the first in-person talks of high-level delegations since Russia invaded Ukraine almost three years ago in 2022. After four and a half hours of talks the meeting broke, with both sides relating they felt it had been productive.
In terms of normalising diplomatic relations between Russia and the U.S., both sides are said to have agreed to return to staffing their embassies in the respective nations.
One of the intended outcomes of the talks was apparently laying the groundwork for an in-person meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for the actual war-ending negotiation process. No date has been set for that meeting, but it was said work was happening to enable it.
Advisor to President Putin and former Russian ambassador to the U.S., Yury Ushakov, who sat around the table with Rubio and Lavrov, said after leaving the meeting that it was not likely Trump and Putin would meet within the next week but that both wanted to meet eventually. He said: “The delegations of the two countries have a lot of work to do. We are ready for this but it is still difficult to speak about the specific date of the meeting between the two leaders… The issue was discussed. We are working out the terms of this meeting”. (Read more from “U.S. And Russia Take ‘First Step’ With ‘Very Useful’ Ukraine War Talks, Agree Trump-Putin Meeting to Come” HERE)
