Officials from the United States and Ukraine are scheduled to meet Tuesday in Saudi Arabia for the first high-level talks on ending the war with Russia since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous Oval Office meeting with President Trump less than three weeks ago.
It was unclear whether Mr. Zelenskyy would participate in the negotiations with the U.S. representatives in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. He arrived Monday to meet with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman and later with the U.S. officials.
The Ukrainian leader said his country is “fully committed” to constructive talks with President Trump. Mr. Trump will stay in the U.S. but is expected to monitor events in Saudi Arabia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived Monday to talk with Saudi leaders.
Mr. Trump is pushing for a ceasefire and a “framework” for a peace agreement in the conflict, which has raged since February 2022.
In a sharp pivot from the Biden administration’s strong support for Kyiv, Mr. Trump recently announced a “pause” in military aid and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine to pressure Mr. Zelenskyy to come to the bargaining table.
Mr. Rubio told reporters on the trip to Saudi Arabia that he understood it was “hard” for the Ukrainians to consider concessions and a potential loss of territory in a peace deal, “but that’s the only way [the war] is going to end and prevent more suffering,” The Associated Press reported.
“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do. I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
Mr. Rubio headed a similar delegation that met with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other top Russian officials in Riyadh last month. It was the first direct talks between senior officials from Moscow and Washington since Russia launched its invasion more than three years ago.
Ukrainians have warned that Mr. Trump’s actions since taking office have encouraged Russia to take a more aggressive stance on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces control about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory in the south and east.
British defense intelligence officials said Monday that Moscow is stepping up a concerted drive to push invading Ukrainian forces out of a slice of Russian border territory in the Kursk region, seeking to reverse an incursion last year that proved highly embarrassing for the Kremlin.
Moscow has been attempting to push Ukrainian forces from the 115-square-mile salient through “slow, grinding advances” since Kyiv’s forces seized the ground in a surprise August operation. Russia deployed about 12,000 North Korean troops in October to assist in repelling the incursion.
Russian forces have made only “gradual gains” to reclaim their territory despite the intensified campaign, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Russian troops have succeeded in “collapsing” the northern tip of the Ukrainian position, the Washington-based think tank reported.
Ukrainian officials see the occupied land in Kursk as a key bargaining chip in forcing Russia to withdraw from some of the territory it controls in Ukraine’s east and south.
Seeking a ‘framework’ for peace
U.S. officials participating in Tuesday’s meeting include Mr. Rubio, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. For Ukraine, the meeting is expected to include Foreign Affairs Minister Andrii Sybiha, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Andriy Yermak, who heads Mr. Zelenskyy’s presidential office.
The talks will focus on developing a framework for a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow. Mr. Zelenskyy said last week that the first stages of a peace plan could include the release of prisoners, a ban on missiles, long-range drones and the bombing of energy and other civilian infrastructure, and a “truce in the sea.”
The two sides will also discuss a deal on U.S. access to Ukraine’s major stocks of strategic minerals, which would allow the U.S. to invest in Ukraine’s rare earth mineral sector. A minerals deal was expected to be signed during Mr. Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House, but the agreement went unsigned after the Oval Office blow-up between the two leaders.
Ukraine has pressed for security guarantees as part of any economic deal, warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot be trusted to keep his promises to refrain from future military aggression in any peace deal.
Since the dust-up, Mr. Zelenskyy has reversed course and declared that Ukraine is ready to sign the minerals agreement “in any time and any convenient format.”
“We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively,” he said.
Mr. Trump has recently been more circumspect about a mineral deal. He has argued that strengthening U.S. economic investment in Ukraine is a security guarantee that would dissuade Russia from attacking its smaller neighbor.
“They will sign the minerals deal, but I want them to want peace. They haven’t shown it to the extent they should,” he said.
Mr. Trump announced Sunday that the U.S. had “just about” ended a suspension of intelligence sharing with Ukraine. He said he expects good results from the talks in Saudi Arabia.
When reporters asked Sunday night whether he would consider ending the suspension, Mr. Trump responded, “We just about have. We just about have.”
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War say Russia has moved to exploit the intelligence pause.
“Kremlin officials have recently announced their intention to take advantage of the suspension of U.S. military aid and intelligence-sharing to ‘inflict maximum damage’ to Ukrainian forces on the ground during the limited time frame before the possible future resumption of U.S. intelligence sharing and military aid to Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War noted in its latest report on the fighting in Ukraine.
Ukrainian commander Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, on a visit to the Kursk front lines, denied reports that the advanced Ukrainian deployment was in danger of being encircled. “Despite the involvement of a significant number of Russian troops in the offensive, reinforced by North Korean infantry, the enemy is suffering significant losses in manpower and equipment,” he wrote on social media.
On a separate track in France, military officials from more than 30 nations from Europe and Asia are set to gather in Paris for talks on creating an international security force for Ukraine, a French military official told AP on Monday. Such an international force would aim to dissuade Russia from launching another offensive after any ceasefire in Ukraine comes into effect.
The United States is not taking part in the Paris gathering.
• David R. Sands contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
