Update on February 17, 2025, at 3:33 pm EST: Russia confirmed on Monday that the talks will be held in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, February 18
Top Trump administration officials are set to travel to Saudi Arabia this week to hold talks with Russian officials to discuss bringing the war in Ukraine to an end, multiple media outlets reported on Sunday.
The delegation is expected to include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy.
Rubio spoke with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in a phone call on Saturday, following up on President Trump’s recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Secretary re-affirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine. In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues,” the State Department said in a readout of the Rubio-Lavrov call.
Ukrainian officials said they were not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview that aired Sunday that he will “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine” if Ukrainian officials don’t participate in the negotiations.
While it’s still unclear how the war will end, the Trump administration’s policy toward Russia is a dramatic shift from the Biden administration. After Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden refused to speak with Putin despite acknowledging the risk of nuclear was at its highest point at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also refused to engage in any meaningful diplomacy with Lavrov, holding only brief conversations with him about prisoner exchanges after the invasion.
