Free Unlock White House Watch News
Your guide on what the 2024 U.S. election means to Washington and the world
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ahead of senior talks between Washington and Moscow next week as relations thaw.
Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will meet with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia next week.
The high-level meeting comes after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with his Russian rival Vladimir Putin, and the two agreed to start negotiations to end the war in Ukraine “immediately”.
Rubio “reaffirmed President Trump’s commitment to end the conflict in Ukraine”, State Department spokesman Tammy Bruce spokesman about Lavrov’s call. “In addition, they discussed opportunities to work together on many other bilateral issues.”
The appeal between Rubio and Lavrov is an important sign that the substantive work has begun negotiations, the two countries have once again regularly contacted and diplomatic normalization. High-level diplomatic contacts between Washington and Moscow actually ceased after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, although these countries have maintained channels of backwardness.
Russian Foreign Ministry said Lavrov and Rubio agreed to work together on “restoring interstate dialogue of mutual respect” and held one between the two leaders, according to the boundaries of Trump’s call with Putin on Wednesday Meeting.
They also agreed to establish “to eliminate unilateral barriers to mutual trade, economic and investment cooperation inherited from the previous administration to eliminate problems in the U.S.-Russian relations to resolve problems in the U.S.-Russian relations”. It shows that the United States is ready to impose sanctions on Moscow during the invasion.
The ministry added that Lavrov and Rubio have a “common will to work together on current international issues” such as Ukraine, the Palestinian Territory, the Middle East and other matters. They also discussed mutual restrictions on each other’s embassies and agreed to establish an expert meeting to agree to “specific steps to improve mutual barriers” to limit their work.
Both the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and Russia’s embassy in Washington have imposed significant restrictions on their staffing, after the previous rounds of tiTat evictions date back to Trump’s first victory in 2016 when Russian election interference.
Trump said on Thursday that there is still a “long way to go” to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but his call with Putin marks a “long way to go for a solution to the war.”
Trump said he had directed Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliff, Waltz and Vidocff to lead the U.S. negotiating team. His Ukrainian envoy, Keith Kellogg, obviously did not have this list.
Trump and other U.S. officials’ remarks about the negotiations this week shocked Kief and the European capital, fearing they would be eliminated in Washington-Moscow talks.
The United States has asked the European capital to provide detailed advice on weapons, peacekeeping forces and security arrangements that they can provide Ukraine as part of any security guarantees to end the war with Russia.
Washington sent a questionnaire to the European government to explore the continent’s willingness to protect Kiev after the war and to measure the price of Europe’s willingness to trade seats at the negotiating table with Moscow.
