Trump administration, Russia hold talks on ending Ukraine war, reopening ties

WASHINGTON — The United States is formally bringing Russia in from the cold with high-level talks aimed at ending Moscow’s war with Ukraine and reestablishing long-frozen diplomatic and economic ties.

A Trump administration team led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down Tuesday for four hours with senior representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the first such meeting since Russia deepened an invasion of Ukraine that began in 2014 but that Putin escalated to all-out war three years ago.

Neither Ukraine nor any European actor was invited to the talks, an omission that reversed U.S. policy that long insisted Kyiv be included in any negotiations to end the war, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed. Until now, NATO and the U.S. were united in supporting Ukraine.

“Today is the first step of a long and difficult journey, but an important one,” Rubio told reporters after the meeting at a Saudi royal palace. “The work remains.”

A peace deal would have to be “fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable,” Rubio said, adding that he was convinced the Russians want to end the war. He also denied Europe and Ukraine were being excluded, saying he and other U.S. officials were briefing other nations as the diplomatic process continues.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other western officials dispute that idea, noting that Russia so far has given up nothing while Ukraine is being told to make concessions.

In Tuesday’s talks, the U.S. and Russia agreed on a “consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship,” the State Department said. It cited “historic economic and investment opportunities” that it claimed could emerge after the war ends.

They also agreed to appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.”

President Trump, for whom foreign policy is largely transactional, has said he “just wants the killing to stop” at almost any cost. That has led to criticism that appeasing Russia will lead to an ever more emboldened Putin at the expense of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and some of Russia’s European neighbors, who feel threatened by their former Soviet parent.

On Wednesday, Trump blamed Ukraine and Zelensky for starting the devastating war.

Responding to Zelensky’s complaint that Ukraine had been excluded from Tuesday’s U.S.-Russia talks, Trump said: “You should have ended it! Three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.”

Zelensky responded that Trump was trumpeting the Kremlin’s version of events and said the U.S. president seemed to be trapped in “Russian disinformation.”

Tuesday’s meeting was a follow-up to Trump’s telephone conversation with Putin last week. Trump essentially ceded to Putin’s main demands: Ukraine will have to give up territory seized illegally by Russia, and must relinquish its goal of joining NATO.

Analysts warned that leaving Ukraine truncated territorially won’t end its pro-West aspirations, and Putin may not tolerate that.

“It would be a very unstable outcome,” Bryn Rosenfeld, a government professor at Cornell University, said in an interview. “Putin will be emboldened” to meddle in Ukraine further, she added, saying Putin is more interested in a full regime change in Ukraine than just Kyiv’s exclusion from NATO.

Trump has hinted that a summit between himself and Putin, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for atrocities in Ukraine, could take place in the near future.

Moscow has already begun taking a victory lap.

“I have reason to believe that the American side has started to better understand our position, which we have once again outlined in detail, using specific examples, based on President Putin’s repeated speeches,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday, emerging from his meeting with Rubio.

Trump’s overtures toward Russia go beyond the traditional “reset” that many new U.S. administrations pursue in recalibrating foreign policy, analysts say.

Known for his admiration of authoritarian strongmen, a one-on-one summit with Putin would play into Trump’s image of world leadership. Also, Trump, like Putin, has set his eyes on territory expansion, including Greenland and the Gaza Strip.

Trump’s renewed relationship with Putin — the pair also got along during Trump’s first administration — further strains Washington’s transatlantic relationships with Europe and NATO, long considered the pillar to Western security.

During an eye-catching speech he made last week at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of world leaders, Vice President JD Vance lectured European attendees on “democracy,” including the need to stop immigration and preserve freedom of speech even from far-right political parties, some of whom have been accused of inciting violence.

“What I worry about is the threat from within — the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America,” Vance said.

Vance then paid a visit to Alice Weidel, a leader and candidate for chancellor of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. Many Germans were furious, given the context of Vance’s speech and the fact that Germany’s tense elections take place this weekend.

Many in Trump’s circle have courted far-right European parties, following another tenet of Putin’s playbook. Putin sees it as a way to divide the West, analysts say.

Rubio was accompanied by two members of Trump’s inner circle — Middle East special envoy and real estate developer Steve Witkoff and national security advisor Mike Waltz.

Zelensky had scheduled a separate trip to Saudi Arabia for later this week, but canceled itTuesday as he condemned what he saw as Ukraine’s sidelining.

“They can talk about anything, but no decision can be made without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine,” Zelensky said at a news conference in Turkey. “We were not invited to this meeting. ... It was a surprise for us, as well as for many.”

Europe is especially concerned that Russia and the U.S. will enter into direct negotiations with Russia about the future of European security “over their heads,” echoing the post-World War II aftermath when top world powers carved up the continent, said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe-Russia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.

“This will add to a deep sense of distrust toward Washington, all of which will likely lead to more tension in other policy areas,” such as trade and tech, Bergmann wrote in a new report on the “coming collisions” in the “transatlantic alliance in the age of Trump.”