According to Trump administration officials, the United States and Russia reportedly reached an agreement on Tuesday to designate high-level teams that would collaborate in an effort to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.
Following high-level discussions between Washington and Moscow, where the Trump administration sought to mend Washington’s strained ties with Russia, a formal mechanism to try to stop the war was announced.
The two parties refrained from declaring that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet for a summit, something Trump had indicated he hoped to happen soon.
Furthermore, the U.S. measures sparked new debate about the larger strategy for ending a conflict that has already claimed over a million lives.
The Trump administration’s special envoy for Ukraine, retired Army lieutenant general Keith Kellogg, attempted to reassure Ukraine on Saturday that direct talks between Ukraine and Russia were possible.
However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security advisor Mike Waltz outlined a procedure wherein a newly established U.S. team would confer with Ukraine and European allies on critical topics and hold direct meetings with its Russian counterparts.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, peace talks that exclude Ukraine would fail.
The two sides will increase the number of employees at their embassies, which had been lowered since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Rubio added.
If the war ends and ties improve, they will also find ways to work together on foreign policy and economic matters.
Europe has seen the Saudi Arabian negotiations as yet another sign of a seismic shift in Western foreign policy that has been going on for decades.
As allies faced the reality that the Riyadh meeting would not include their or Ukraine’s participation, transatlantic relations—which had already been strained by Vice President JD Vance’s harsh speech accusing European leaders of disregarding the will of their voters—became even more tense.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister for more than two decades, and Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s close adviser and former Russian ambassador in Washington, represented Russia.
While retaining its gains in Ukraine, Russia has hinted that its goals include extending diplomatic ties and reversing harsh economic sanctions imposed by the United States.
Lavrov stated before departing for Riyadh that there was “no thought” of giving Ukraine any territory and that European countries would not need to take part in any further talks regarding the war in Ukraine.
The discussions, which took place at the opulent Diriyah Palace in the Saudi capital, were the most high-profile gathering of American and Russian officials since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Officials from the Trump administration claimed that the U.S. president’s propensity for action was mirrored in their accelerated diplomacy, which started with a phone conversation Trump had with Putin last week.
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