US and Russian officials are set to meet in Saudi Arabia next week to start talks aimed at ending Moscow’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine, Reuters and AFP reported citing US officials. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and the Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will form the US delegation at the meeting, which may pave the way for a potential leaders’ summit as soon as the end of the month, the news agencies reported. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Ukraine had not been invited to the talks and that Kyiv would not engage with Russia before consulting with strategic partners.
Rubio and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, discussed the situation in Ukraine in a call on Saturday, as well as the removal of “unilateral barriers” set by previous US administration, according to Moscow. “The two sides expressed their mutual willingness to interact on pressing international issues, including the settlement around Ukraine,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. Moscow said the pair agreed on regular contacts to prepare for a meeting between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his US counterpart, Donald Trump.
Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said Europe will be consulted – but ultimately excluded – from the talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US. “To my European friends, I would say: ‘Get into the debate, not by complaining that you might, yes or no, be at the table, but by coming up with concrete proposals, ideas, ramp up [defence] spending’,” Kellogg said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
Zelenskyy told the Munich conference that the time had come for a European army to be created. “Our army alone is not enough, we need your support,” he said on Saturday, adding that the “old days” when the US supported Europe “just because it always had” are over. He also told leaders and officials that he would not take Nato membership for Ukraine off the table and insisted that no decisions should be taken on ending Russia’s war without Kyiv and Europe.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, was on Saturday night seeking to convene an emergency meeting of European leaders, including the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, as concerns grew over Trump’s attempts to seize control of the Ukraine peace process. The meeting, likely to be held on Monday, is expected to discuss US efforts to exclude European leaders from the peace talks, the position Europe should adopt on Ukraine’s future membership of Nato and how Ukraine can be offered security guarantees, either through Nato or some European force.
Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, said “Europe needs to talk less and do more”, in response to the prospect of being shut out of talks. “There’s no way in which we can have discussions or negotiations about Ukraine, Ukraine’s future or European security structure, without Europeans,” Stubb told reporters in Munich. “But this means that Europe needs to get its act together.”
The UK foreign minister, David Lammy, said he would encourage Trump and Zelenskyy to deepen their partnership in the future. Speaking at the Munich conference on Saturday, Lammy said the best security guarantee for Ukraine against future Russian aggression was binding US industry, business and defence capability into its future.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said the war between Ukraine and Russia would only truly end with peace if Ukrainian sovereignty is secured. “We will also not accept any solution that leads to a decoupling of European and American security. Only one person would benefit from this: President Putin,” Scholz said on Saturday.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, have discussed Kyiv’s vision of a path to peace with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi. Sybiha said on X the meeting that took place on the sidelines of the Munich conference was to “reaffirm mutual respect for territorial integrity”. On Friday, Wang told the conference that China believes all stakeholders in the Russia-Ukraine conflict should participate in the peace talks, underscoring Europe’s role in them.
Trump’s administration has proposed to Ukraine that the US be given 50% of the wartorn country’s rare earth minerals, NBC has reported. Instead of paying for the minerals, the agreement would be a way for Ukraine to pay back the multi-billion-dollar weapons and aid packages that the US has provided to it since Russia’s invasion in 2022. Zelenskyy said the rare earth mineral deal proposed by the US did not contain security provisions that Ukraine needed. Upon being asked by reporters what the issue was with the US document, Zelenskyy said on Saturday: “It’s not in our interest today, not in the interest of sovereign Ukraine.”
