KATHMANDU. A Ukrainian delegation set to meet with top U.S. diplomats in Saudi Arabia to end a three-year war with Russia will propose a ceasefire that includes a freeze on the Black Sea and long-range missile strikes as well as the release of prisoners, two senior Ukrainian officials said on Monday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about Tuesday’s meeting, said the Ukrainian delegation was ready to sign an agreement with the United States on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals during the talks.
The deal is something U.S. President Donald Trump is eager to secure. Officials have discussed confidence-building measures ahead of a meeting of the Ukrainian negotiating team with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jeddah, without providing further details. Kiev is trying to repair the damage caused by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s February 28 visit to Washington, where he sparred with Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office.
The United States, which has been helping Ukraine in the war, has offered military aid and intelligence that it had previously offered but has now been withheld as Washington presses for a peace deal. Rubio and Zelensky landed in Saudi Arabia within hours of each other on Monday but did not meet. Zelensky met with the kingdom’s powerful crown prince on Monday evening. Zelensky said they had “a detailed discussion of the steps and conditions necessary to end the war and secure a credible and lasting peace.”
“Saudi Arabia provides an important platform for diplomacy and we appreciate it,” Zelensky said online. Rubio also met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He thanked him for hosting the talks and discussed Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have threatened to resume their offensive in the Red Sea.
Speaking to reporters on his plane before arriving, Rubio said he and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz would review Ukraine’s response to Saudi Arabia. If Ukraine and the US reach an agreement acceptable to Trump, it could accelerate his administration’s peace talks efforts.
“We want to know if they are willing to enter into some kind of peace talks and common frameworks that they can consider, recognizing that this has been a costly and bloody war for the Ukrainians. They have suffered a lot and their people have suffered a lot,” Rubio said, “and it’s hard to talk about concessions as a result of something like this, but it’s the only way to end it and prevent further suffering.” “I’m not going to make any stipulations about what they should or need to do. “I think we want to hear how far they are willing to go and compare that to what the Russians want and see how far we really are,” he said.
Zelensky said his team to meet Rubio would include his chief of staff Andriy Yermak, Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiha and Defense Minister Rustam Umarov. Rubio will lead the US team. The rest of Europe has been skeptical about the talks as Washington has sidelined them. The European Union (EU) last week agreed to boost the continent’s security and free up hundreds of billions of euros for security in response to the Trump administration’s destabilizing Ukraine.
White House special envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News on Monday that the suspension of U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine does not limit defense intelligence sharing. “We are not stopping intelligence that the Ukrainians need … for any defensive purpose,” he said. The suspension of U.S. intelligence sharing that could be used by the Ukrainian military for offensive purposes has been a U.S. official said. The official indicated that progress could be made toward reestablishing intelligence sharing with Ukraine during the Saudi talks.
प्रतिक्रिया दिनुहोस्