{"id":11955,"date":"2025-02-19T05:01:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T10:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/?p=11955"},"modified":"2025-02-18T22:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T03:09:19","slug":"top-russian-and-us-officials-discuss-improving-ties-and-ending-the-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/top-russian-and-us-officials-discuss-improving-ties-and-ending-the-ukraine-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Russian and US officials discuss improving ties and ending the Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Guantanamo.- The top diplomats from Russia and the U.S. met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 talks that reflected a major and rapid change in American foreign policy under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the beleaguered country is\u00a0slowly but steadily losing ground<\/a>\u00a0against more numerous Russian troops in a grinding war that began nearly three years ago. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country won\u2019t accept any outcome from this week’s talks if Kyiv doesn’t take part. European allies have also\u00a0expressed concerns<\/a>\u00a0they are being sidelined.<\/p>\n

Beyond Ukraine, the meeting \u2014 attended by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other senior officials \u2014 had been expected to focus on thawing relations between the two countries, whose ties have fallen to their lowest level in decades.<\/p>\n

Improving Russian-US relations<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an interview with The Associated Press after the meeting, Rubio said the two side agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks, and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.<\/p>\n

Both embassies have been hit hard by expulsions of large numbers of diplomats over the course of several years as relations soured and the U.S., along with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia. The allies have repeatedly\u00a0expanded the measures<\/a>\u00a0to damage its economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould this conflict come to an acceptable end, the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians geopolitically on issues of common interest and frankly, economically on issues that hopefully will be good for the world and also improve our relations in the long term,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n

His remarks were further evidence of the remarkable U.S. reversal on Russia after years in which Trump\u2019s predecessor led international efforts to isolate Moscow.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s meeting was meant to pave the way for a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. After the talks wrapped, Putin\u2019s foreign affairs advisor, Yuri Ushakov, told Russia\u2019s Channel One that no date has been set yet for that summit but that it was \u201cunlikely\u201d to take place next week.<\/p>\n

Ushakov\u2019s remarks suggested the two sides made little progress. Russia and the United States agreed to \u201ctake each other\u2019s interests into account\u201d and advance their relations. He added that it was \u201chard to say\u201d that the two countries\u2019 positions \u201care getting closer, but there was talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the talks would be primarily focused on \u201crestoring the entire range of U.S.-Russian relations, as well as preparing possible talks on the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a meeting of the two presidents.\u201d U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce has said the meeting was aimed at determining how serious the Russians are about wanting peace and whether detailed negotiations can be started.<\/p>\n

Concerns from allies they are being sidelined<\/strong><\/p>\n

The recent U.S. diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Ukraine and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won\u2019t be favorable to them.<\/p>\n

Kyiv’s absence at Tuesday’s talks has\u00a0rankled many Ukrainians<\/a>, and France called an\u00a0emergency meeting<\/a>\u00a0of European Union countries and the U.K. on Monday to discuss the war.<\/p>\n

Rubio said Tuesday that ending Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine would require concessions from all sides and that Europe would be a part of talks.<\/p>\n

When asked about sanctions against Russia, Rubio noted that the measures were imposed as a result of Russia\u2019s invasion and that it\u2019s not just the U.S. that has imposed them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European Union is going to have to be at the table at some point because they have sanctions as well that have been imposed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kyiv\u2019s participation in such talks was a bedrock of U.S. policy under Joe Biden, whose administration also led\u00a0international efforts to isolate Russia<\/a>\u00a0over the war.<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said he spoke by phone to Trump and Zelenskyy following the meeting he called in Paris.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe seek a strong and lasting peace in Ukraine,\u201d Macron wrote on social media platform X. \u201cTo achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,\u201d he said and vowed to \u201cwork on this together with all Europeans, Americans, and Ukrainians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peskov on Tuesday said that Putin has repeatedly expressed readiness for peace talks, and noted that a durable settlement of the conflict in Ukraine would be impossible without \u201ca comprehensive consideration of security issues\u201d in Europe.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia’s role<\/strong><\/p>\n

The meeting at the Diriyah Palace in the Saudi capital of Riyadh also highlights de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s efforts to be a major diplomatic player, burnishing a reputation severely tarnished by the 2018\u00a0killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Saudi state media described the talks as happening at the prince\u2019s direction. Like the neighboring United Arab Emirates, the prince has maintained close relations to Russia throughout its war on Ukraine, both through the OPEC+ oil cartel and diplomatically as well.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has also helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Zelenskyy for an Arab League summit in 2023. Zelenskyy said he would travel to the kingdom later this week.<\/p>\n

Rubio was accompanied by U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrov sat next to the Kremlin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaed al Alban joined Rubio, Lavrov and others for the start of the meeting but were expected to leave early in the talks.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund who the Kremlin said might join, underscored the importance of the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood U.S.-Russia relations are very important for the whole world. Only jointly can Russia and the U.S. address lots of world problems, resolve for global conflicts and offer solutions,\u201d Dmitriev, who said he and his team would focus on economic issues at the talks, told the AP.<\/p>\n

The meeting marked the most extensive contact between the two countries since Moscow’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion. Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken\u00a0talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20<\/a>\u00a0meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, U.S. and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington\u2019s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks.<\/p>\n

War continues<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv’s military. The Ukrainian air force said Russian troops launched a barrage of 176 drones at Ukraine overnight, most of which were destroyed or disabled by jamming.<\/p>\n

One Russian drone struck a residential building in Dolynska in the Kirovohrad region, wounding a mother and her two children and prompting an evacuation of 38 apartments, the regional administration reported. Four more residential buildings were damaged by drone debris in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, according to local officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guantanamo.- The top diplomats from Russia and the U.S. met Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine\u00a0\u2014 talks that reflected a major and rapid change in American foreign policy under President Donald Trump. No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting, which came as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internacionales","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11957,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11955\/revisions\/11957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radioguantanamo.icrt.cu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}