Two senior Russian officials will travel to Saudi Arabia to meet their counterparts from the United States to discuss ending the Ukraine war, the Kremlin has confirmed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin, will fly to Riyadh on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The duo is expected to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prepare for peace talks on Ukraine.
“Also it will be dedicated to possible negotiations on a Ukrainian resolution and organising a meeting between the two presidents,” Peskov said.
It has previously been suggested that US President Donald Trump would meet with Putin in Saudi Arabia. Trump said at the weekend that such a meeting could happen “very soon”.
The Kremlin spokesman also said the meeting will focus on “restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations”, the Reuters news agency reported.
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund chief Kirill Dmitriev is reported to be set to join the meetings, and US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are also due in Riyadh.
Rubio said on Sunday that Tuesday’s meeting would seek to open a broader conversation that “would include Ukraine and would involve the end of the war”.
“A process towards peace is not a one-meeting thing,” he told the US television network CBS.
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