A handout photograph made obtainable by the Russian Overseas Ministry Press Service reveals Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov (2-L) and Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov (2-R) talking with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R), US Nationwide Safety Advisor Mike Waltz (L), and US Center East envoy Steve Witkoff (R) after their assembly at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 18 February 2025. [Russian Foreign Ministry handout/EPA]
US and Russian officers held greater than 4 hours of talks in Riyadh on Tuesday, their first on ending the battle in Ukraine, as Kyiv and its European allies watched anxiously from the sidelines and Moscow raised a significant new demand.
Interfax information company quoted Russian negotiator Yuri Ushakov as saying the talks went nicely, and circumstances had been mentioned for a gathering between presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Ushakov stated a summit was unlikely to happen subsequent week. However the talks within the Saudi capital underscored the fast tempo of US efforts to halt the battle, lower than a month after Trump took workplace and 6 days after he spoke by telephone to Putin.
Even whereas the assembly was beneath method, Russia signalled a hardening of its calls for.
Overseas Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova advised reporters in Moscow it was “not sufficient” for NATO to not admit Ukraine as a member. She stated the alliance should go additional by disavowing a promise it made at a summit in Bucharest in 2008 that Kyiv would be a part of at a future, unspecified, date.
“In any other case, this downside will proceed to poison the environment on the European continent,” she stated. There was no rapid response from NATO members or america.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has persistently demanded NATO membership as the one method to assure Kyiv’s sovereignty and independence from its nuclear-armed neighbour.
He and European leaders are apprehensive that Trump may lower a hasty take care of Moscow that ignores their safety pursuits, rewards Russia for its invasion and leaves Putin free to threaten Ukraine or different nations sooner or later.
Critics say that Trump’s crew, by ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine and saying that Kyiv’s want to win again all its misplaced territory is an phantasm, has made main concessions upfront. US officers say they’re merely recognising actuality.
Ukraine says no peace deal could be made on its behalf. “We, as a sovereign nation, merely won’t be able to simply accept any agreements with out us,” Zelenskyy stated final week.
[Reuters]
