---
title: "Russian, US Officials to Meet on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia"
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post_id: "8823"
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published: "2025-02-17T23:57:38+00:00"
modified: "2025-02-17T23:57:38+00:00"
author: "penny2"
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tags:
  - "Russia"
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**As mentioned we had company until today- so I’m playing a bit of catch up. Some pod-casters were crowing about Ukraine being settled up between Russia and the US. I don’t think so.** **From what I’m reading the meeting on Tuesday is a tentative start on resetting relations- not so much about Ukraine.**

[**Top Russia, US officials to meet in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday**](https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/top-russia-us-officials-to-meet-in-saudi-arabia-on-tuesday/article#ixzz90YRAdktZ)

> Top US and Russian diplomats will meet in Saudi Arabia **on Tuesday for talks on resetting the countries’ fractured relations and making a tentative start on trying to end the Ukraine war.**
> 
> **`Both sides played down the chances that the first high-level meeting between the countries since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022 would result in a breakthrough.`**
> 
> Nevertheless, the very fact of the talks has triggered concern in Kyiv and Europe — left reeling by Washington’s dramatic diplomatic moves towards the Kremlin.
> 
> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday accused Washington of wanting “to please” Russian President Valdimir Putin by “now saying things that are very favourable” to him.
> 
> **He previously revealed that Kyiv had not been invited to the discussions in Riyadh.**
> 
> Meanwhile, European leaders were gathering in Paris for emergency talks on how to respond to the radical pivot by the new US administration.
> 
> Preparations for a **possible summit between presidents Donald Trump and Putin are also set to be on the agenda.**

**Possible summit? Okay.**

> Trump is pushing for a swift resolution to the three-year conflict in Ukraine, while Moscow sees his outreach as a chance to gain concessions on some of its long-standing gripes about Washington’s military presence in Europe.
> 
> Zelensky said Kyiv “did not know anything about” the talks in Riyadh, according to Ukrainian news agencies, and that it “cannot recognise any things or any agreements about us without us”.
> 
> **Moscow** said ahead of the meeting that **Putin and Trump wanted to move on from “abnormal relations” and that it saw no place for Europeans to be at any negotiating table.**

**If Moscow is suggesting that Europe has no reason to be at the negotiating table, that seems to me as if Ukraine is not the main topic of discussion. It might not even be a minor topic at this point in time?**

> Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and senior Putin aide Yuri Ushakov, who arrived in Riyadh late on Monday according to images shown by the Rossiya 24 news channel, will meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.

– Possible Trump-Putin summit –

> Kremlin spokesman **Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the talks would be “primarily devoted to restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations”**, alongside **discussions on “possible negotiations on a Ukrainian resolution**, and organising a meeting between the two presidents”.
> 
> **Moscow, which for years has sought to roll back NATO’s presence in Europe, has made clear it wants to hold bilateral talks with the United States** on a plethora of broad security issues, not just a possible Ukraine ceasefire.

**If Moscow want NATO away from it’s borders, you go right to the source. The US.**

> **The prospects of any talks leading to an agreement to halt the Ukraine fighting are unclear.**

> **Both Moscow and Washington have cast the meeting as the beginning of a potentially lengthy process.**

> **“I don’t think that people should view this as something that is about details or moving forward in some kind of a negotiation,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.**

Zelensky will travel to Turkey on Tuesday to discuss the conflict with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and then Saudi Arabia a day later.

He does not plan to hold talks with either the US or Russian delegations, his spokesman said on Monday.

**– Europe is ‘weak’ –**

> As European leaders gathered in Paris for an emergency security summit, Russia’s **Lavrov on Monday said he saw no point in them taking part in any Ukraine talks.**

> ***“I don’t know what they would do at the negotiating table… if they are going to sit at the negotiating table with the aim of continuing war, then why invite them there?,”*** he told a press conference in Moscow.

**Lavrov doesn’t see the point in any European leaders sitting at the table.**

> Germany on Monday said ***“direct contact between the Americans and the Russians is not a bad thing if it is about finding a way to a durable and lasting peace.”***
> 
> **Moscow heads into the Saudi talks boosted by recent gains on the battlefield.**
> 
> **Its better resourced troops are pushing Ukraine back across the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line.**
> 
> Russia’s army on Monday said its forces had captured a small settlement in northeastern Ukraine and also retaken control of a village in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock counter-offensive last August.

[Link](https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/17/another-u-s-prisoner-released-from-russia-ahead-of-ukraine-talks-in-saudi-arabia/)– **The US citizen released by Russia.. there’s more to this than US based media outlets are reporting**

> U.S. citizen who was arrested in Russia earlier this month **on drug smuggling charges has been released and is on his way home to West Virginia,** according to his hometown newspaper, the Wheeling News-Register.

[**CBS**](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-us-kalob-byers-released-marijuana-marmalade-trump-ukraine)

> According to the reports, **`Byers had traveled from Istanbul with his Russian fiancee,` who was also detained. The authorities said he had attempted to smuggle a “significant amount” of drugs into the country and put him in custody on the charges of drug smuggling, punishable by a prison term of up to 10 years.**

**So, I’m not buying the marijuana gummies and melatonin pills- much more to this story**

**The fiancé**

> **It wasn’t immediately clear Monday whether Byers’ fiancee had also been released. Russian media reports identified her as Naida Mambetova and said she was placed in pre-trial detention on the same charges.**

[**US must provide ‘backstop’ to deter Russia, PM says after talks on Ukraine**](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-ukraine-russia-donald-trump-european-b1211716.html)

> Sir Keir Starmer has called for the US to provide a “backstop” to deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again after meeting with European leaders for emergency talks on the future of the war.
> 
> The Prime Minister warned that allies across the continent – including Britain – will have to “take responsibility” for its security by bolstering both defence spending and capability following a meeting with partners in Paris on Monday.

https://dailypost.ng/2025/02/17/ceasefire-us-russia-yet-to-agree-how-to-start-ukraine-talks/#google_vignette 

> Foreign policy adviser to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Yuri Ushakov, on Monday said that Moscow and Washington had yet to agree on how to embark on Ukraine peace talks, stating that **the US had not yet appointed a chief negotiator to talk to Russia.**
> 
> Ushakov, along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, is due to take part in bilateral talks with US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after Putin and US President Donald Trump spoke by phone last week and agreed to begin talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
> 
> **It was gathered that the aim of the meeting was to discuss the restoration of normal relations** (with the U.S.), to **discuss the beginning of possible negotiations** on Ukraine, and to discuss prospects for contacts at the highest level between Putin and Trump.
> 
> “Now the question is about agreeing on **how to start negotiations on Ukraine because the American side hasn’t appointed a chief negotiator to conduct business with us,” Ushakov said.**

[**Politico**](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-ukraine-russia-donald-trump-european-b1211716.html)

> U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was on his way to the country, amid **expectations** that peace talks on ending the war in Ukraine are about to begin.
> 
> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) late Sunday.
> 
> The Kremlin on Monday said Lavrov and Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov were heading to Saudi Arabia and will meet with U.S. representatives in Riyadh on Tuesday.
> 
> Rubio is in Riyadh with U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. **The White House has not disclosed who exactly the American officials will be meeting in the Saudi capital.**
> 
> **“It is expected that on Tuesday in Riyadh they will hold a meeting with their American counterparts, which will be devoted primarily to the restoration of the entire complex of Russian-American relations,”** Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

**Russia and the US are going to get re- acquainted?**