The United States and Russia agree to “the basis for the end of the Ukrainian war”

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Since the invasion of Vladimir Putin, Russia and the United States have agreed to “lay the foundation for future cooperation” to strengthen ties and end the Ukrainian war.

After four and a half hours of negotiations in Riyadh on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department said the two sides would appoint “senior teams” to seek to end the war and establish diplomatic channels to resolve bilateral issues.

“This needs to be a permanent ending of the war, not a temporary ending we have seen in the past,” said Mike Waltz, a U.S. National Security Adviser, talks.

“The practical reality is that there will be some discussion on the territory and security assurance will be discussed, which is just the basic basics,” Walz added.

The Kremlin appeared to intensify its stance on Tuesday as talks in Riyadh sparked fear in Kiev, with European capitals in which Trump hopes to resolve the conflict under Putin’s terms.

The State Council said the new diplomatic channels would “lay the foundation for future cooperation with mutual geopolitical interests and historic economic and investment opportunities that would go from the end of success to the end of the Ukrainian conflict.”

Russia said the two sides will also appoint separate delegations to discuss Ukraine.

When asked what concessions Moscow would make, Rubio said any such step would be caused by the “hard, difficult diplomacy” in the “closed room for a period of time.”

“No one has been eliminated here,” he added.

Vikov said the EU “has to be on the table at some point because they imposed sanctions as well”.

But on Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry ruled out Europe’s role in Ukraine’s talks and asked NATO to revoke its open invitation to Kiev in 2008, as Moscow said Moscow “clearly opposes” European peacekeeping deployments.

European leaders had previously clashed at the Paris summit to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine. Despite the UK’s proposal to put “boots on the ground”, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain have expressed their reluctance to do so.

Waltz said the United States was engaged in “shuttle diplomacy” and consulted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron, while Trump was under Week will meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

He added that he rejected the notion that “our allies have not been consulted yet.”

The meeting in Riyadh on Tuesday was the first between the United States and Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022. Under almost unimaginable weeks ago, Russian and American flags flew towards each other outside the luxurious palace where the conference was held.

The negotiations marked a remarkable shift, days after Trump called last week to end the war without consulting Ukraine or its European allies.

Kiev said it would reject any agreements to implement this without participation, while European countries scrambled to retract their seats on the table.

With Tuesday’s talks, Zelenskyy visited his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had previously tried to play the role of a broker in the conflict.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, accompanied Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the Riyadh talks, said the discussion was “not bad”. He added that Russia and the United States “agree to consider each other’s interests” but “it’s hard to say” that they are “get closer.”

Ushakov said the United States and Russia will work to “create conditions” for the Trump-Pardin meeting, although he said that this may not be done next week because “thorough work” is required first.

Before the negotiations began, the United States seemed to have put forward some of Putin’s core demands and said that Ukraine’s ambitions to join NATO and the territory currently occupied by Russia were not “realistic”.