JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Senior officials from Ukraine and the United States opened talks Tuesday focused on ending Moscow’s three-year war against Kyiv, hours after Russia shot down over 300 Ukrainian drones. It was Ukraine’s biggest attack since the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
The talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah come after President Donald Trump paused U.S. military aid to Ukraine last week, along with some intelligence sharing, in an attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in negotiations to end the war against Russia.
Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel later this week to Moscow, where he could meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment publicly. The person cautioned that scheduling could change.
The mood across the room
Journalists were briefly allowed in a room where a senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who smiled at the cameras and when asked about his expectations for the meeting, gave a thumbs-up and replied, “Good.”
Across the table, Ukrainian officials, including the country’s top diplomat and defense chief, showed no facial expressions as the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel. However, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak told reporters that the most important thing was “how to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.” He said security guarantees were important to prevent Russia from invading again in the future.
It was the first meeting between the two sides since the Oval Office blowup between Trump and Zelenskyy last month.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was also on hand as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags could be seen in the background. Officials did not answer any of the journalists’ shouted questions.
The delegations met for about three hours in the morning before taking a break, and officials said the talks continued in the afternoon.
There was also no immediate comment from Ukrainian or U.S. officials on the massive attack in which 343 drones targeted 10 Russian regions, leaving three people dead and 18 wounded, including three children, officials said.
Meanwhile, Russia launched 126 drones and a ballistic missile at Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said, as part of Moscow’s relentless pounding of civilian areas during the war.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the United States will inform Russia about the results of the Jeddah talks, which he described as “normal practice.”
Talks bring a chance to mend US-Ukraine relations
The meeting in Jeddah offered an opportunity for Kyiv officials to repair Ukraine’s relationship with the Trump administration after an unprecedented argument erupted during Zelenskyy’s Feb. 28 visit to the White House.
Critically, Ukraine needs to persuade Washington to end the U.S. suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing after the blowout. U.S. officials have said that positive talks in Jeddah could mean that the pause is short.
Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they will propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which would bring safer shipping, as well as long-range missile strikes that have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.
The two senior officials said Kyiv is also ready to sign an agreement with the United States on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals — a deal that Trump is keen to secure.
While traveling to Jeddah, Rubio said the U.S. delegation would not be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the conflict but rather wanted to hear from Ukraine about what they would be willing to consider.
“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
Rubio said the rare earth and critical minerals deal could be signed during the meeting, but he stressed it was not a precondition for the United States to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.
He said it may make more sense to take some time to negotiate the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.
The Kremlin is sticking to its conditions for peace
The Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it’s ready to cease hostilities on condition that Ukraine drops its bid to join NATO and recognizes regions that Moscow occupies as Russian. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.
Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for more than a year, though at a high cost in infantry and armor, and are pushing at selected points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, against Ukraine’s understrength and weary army.
Ukraine has invested heavily in developing its arms industry, especially high-tech drones that have reached deep into Russia.
Most of the Ukrainian drones fired overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, according to a statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the biggest single attack on Moscow so far in the war.
The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.
Flights were temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
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