Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would not recognise any peace agreements made without its participation, as top Russian and US officials prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia for high-stakes talks on the war in Ukraine.
“Ukraine regards any negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine as ones that have no result, and we cannot recognise … any agreements about us without us,” Zelenskyy said on Monday. His comments came as Russian and American officials travelled to Riyadh before Tuesday’s talks aimed at ending Moscow’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine, with Kyiv and Europe excluded from the negotiations.
Zelenskyy confirmed Ukraine would not take part in the talks. “Ukraine did not know anything about it,” he said.
The swift push to organise the US-Russia talks came after last week’s call between Trump and Vladimir Putin, where the two leaders discussed opening negotiations on the war. The meeting in Riyadh will mark the first in-person discussions between top officials from both countries in years, after a sharp downturn in relations after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Both sides are dispatching high-level delegations, underscoring the importance they place on the talks, which could lay the groundwork for a Trump-Putin summit as early as this month.
The US delegation will feature some of Trump’s most senior aides, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, as well as Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz.
Moscow announced that Putin had tasked his most senior foreign policy envoy, Yuri Ushakov, along with his longtime foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to travel to Saudi Arabia.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the meeting “will be devoted to the preparation of possible negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement and the organisation of a meeting between the two presidents”.
In comments cited by Tass news agency on Monday morning, Lavrov said Russia had no intention of making territorial concessions to Ukraine during the peace talks.
In September 2022, Russia declared the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in Ukraine, including areas that remained outside its control.
Lavrov said Moscow would hear out “its US colleagues” but added that Europe “has no place at the negotiating table”.
Also present in Riyadh for Russia will be Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a financier subject to US sanctions, who is also reportedly a close friend of Putin’s daughter.
“A heavyweight Russia delegation is departing for Riyadh … All are loyal and trusted insiders,” the liberal commentator Alexei Venediktov wrote on his telegram channel.
Zelenskyy said in a video briefing from the United Arab Emirates on Monday, where he was on a state visit, that he would travel to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, though he stressed his visit was not linked to the Russian-US peace talks.
“So, once again, my visits have nothing in common with those talks. Although when I arrive in Saudi Arabia I will ask his majesty what he knows about the topics of the talks,” Zelenskyy added.
He also announced on Monday that Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, would visit Kyiv on Thursday. Zelenskyy said he wanted to take Kellogg on a joint trip to the frontline, where they would meet Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi.
He stressed that Europe had to be at the table for negotiations, and should be represented by a person respected in the continent. He did not rule out China’s participation but said only those who gave security guarantees stopping Russian aggression should be involved.
Kellogg, viewed as Trump’s most pro-Ukraine adviser, though with declining influence, confirmed plans to visit Ukraine. Speaking at Nato headquarters in Brussels on Monday, he underscored that no peace deal would be imposed on Kyiv.
On Sunday, Trump stated that Zelenskyy would take part in the discussions but did not specify at what stage or whether Ukrainian officials would be present in Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has played a central role in early contacts between the Trump administration and Moscow, helping to secure a prisoner swap last week. Peskov said the location was chosen because it suited both countries.
The blistering speed of talks has added to further anxieties in Europe, which has been left out of the talks.
During the Munich security conference over the weekend, Kellogg told European officials that while Europe would be consulted, it would ultimately be excluded from the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the US.
Responding to the fast-moving negotiations taking place without them, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, convened an emergency meeting in Paris with European leaders.
“We feel like we’re constantly left in the dark,” a senior European official told the Guardian, commenting on this week’s talks. “At the moment, we’re running behind the news. Our goal now is to show what we can bring to the table.”
Despite the flurry of diplomacy, little is known about Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine or Russia’s willingness to engage.
Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, on Monday sought to downplay expectations for the talks, noting that Moscow and Washington had yet to establish a framework for Ukraine peace negotiations, as Washington had not yet appointed a chief negotiator to engage with Russia.
He added that the discussions in Riyadh would centre on “agreeing on how to initiate negotiations to resolve the Ukrainian conflict”.
The US has repeatedly said it wants European peacekeeping troops to enter Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire or peace deal – an idea under discussion among European leaders.
Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, on Sunday said he was prepared to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine if there was a deal to end the war with Russia.
While Russia has repeatedly rejected the possibility of European forces in Ukraine, Moscow appeared to tone down its rhetoric on Monday, with the Kremlin spokesperson, Peskov, calling it a “complex issue”.
• This article was amended on 18 February 2025. As stated in the article, the first name of the Kremlin spokesperson is Dmitry, not Sergei as given in an earlier photo caption.
