RIYADH, Feb 18 (Reuters) – U.S. and Russian officials met on Tuesday in Riyadh for their first talks on ending the war in Ukraine, as Kyiv and its European allies watched anxiously from the sidelines and Moscow raised a new demand that NATO formally disavow a membership promise it made to Ukraine in 2008.
The talks in the Saudi capital underscored the rapid pace of U.S. efforts to halt the conflict, less than a month after President Donald Trump took office and six days after he spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine and European leaders are worried that Trump could cut a hasty deal with Moscow that ignores their security interests, rewards Russia for invading its neighbour and leaves Putin free to threaten Ukraine or other countries in the future.
Critics say that Trump’s team, by ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine and saying that Kyiv’s desire to win back all its lost territory is an illusion, has made major concessions in advance. U.S. officials say they are simply recognising reality.
Ukraine says no peace deal can be made on its behalf. “We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week.
Hours after the start of the Riyadh meeting, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters in Moscow it was “not enough” for NATO not to admit Ukraine as a member.
She said the alliance must go further by disavowing a promise it made at a summit in Bucharest in 2008 that Kyiv would join at a future, unspecified, date.
“Otherwise, this problem will continue to poison the atmosphere on the European continent,” she said. There was no immediate response from NATO members or the United States.
In Riyadh, three U.S. officials in the first month of their jobs – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff – were lined up opposite two veterans of Russian diplomacy. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been in his role since 2004, and Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov has served as Putin’s foreign policy adviser since 2012.
Media were allowed to film the two delegations, seated on opposite sides of a polished wooden table with large white floral arrangements.
The officials ignored shouted questions from reporters asking whether the U.S. was sidelining the Ukrainians and what concessions Washington was demanding of Moscow.
The Kremlin said the Riyadh talks may bring clarity on a possible meeting between Trump and Putin, which both men have said they are keen to hold.
RUSSIA AND US THAW FROZEN TIES WHILE UKRAINE LOOKS ON
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, eight years after seizing Crimea and fomenting an insurgency in the east of the country. It now controls about a fifth of the country.
Trump ran for president last year on an oft-repeated promise to end the conflict within 24 hours, though his officials now concede it will take months. He has described the war as “ridiculous” and said that it is “destroying” Russia.
Moscow, however, has sounded increasingly confident in recent months as its troops have advanced at their fastest pace since 2022 and Trump’s overtures have ended its near-total isolation from the West. Under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, the Kremlin had described relations as “below zero”.
U.S. officials cast Tuesday’s talks as an initial contact to determine whether Moscow is serious about ending the war, after Putin and Trump spoke last Wednesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that “President Putin has been repeating his words about his readiness for peace talks from the very beginning”.
But he also said any agreement with Ukraine would have to take into account a possible challenge to the legitimacy of Zelenskiy, who has remained in power beyond the end of his normal term because Ukraine is under martial law.
The Kremlin had suggested the discussions would cover “the entire complex of Russian-American relations”.
Putin and Trump have said that, apart from the war, they are keen to discuss issues such as nuclear arms control and how to bring down global energy prices.
Under Biden, the United States provided many tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and aid to Ukraine and joined other Western governments in slapping waves of sanctions on Russia.
Moscow says it has withstood the sanctions and that they have rebounded on those who imposed them.
“U.S. businesses lost around $300 billion from leaving Russia. So there is huge economic toll on many countries from, you know, what’s happening right now,” Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, told reporters in Riyadh.
Russia said that in a call on Saturday Lavrov and Rubio discussed removing barriers to trade and investment.
EUROPE SEEKS TO RETAIN INFLUENCE AS US AND RUSSIA TALK
It remains unclear how Europe will engage Washington after Trump stunned Ukraine and European allies by bringing Putin in from the cold.
European leaders holding emergency talks on Monday called for higher spending to ramp up the continent’s defence capabilities but remained split on the idea of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine.
The leaders also agreed it would be dangerous to conclude a Ukraine ceasefire without a peace agreement at the same time, and that they were ready to provide security guarantees to Ukraine “depending on the level of American support”, a European official said.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said before the meeting that he was willing to send peacekeeping troops, said on Monday there must be a U.S. security “backstop” for European countries to put boots on the ground.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, said he would visit Ukraine from Wednesday and was asked if the U.S. would provide a security guarantee for any European peacekeepers.
“I’ve been with President Trump, and the policy has always been: You take no options off the table,” he said.
By Humeyra Pamuk and Pesha Magid, reuters