The U.S. and Russian governments have both given the highest priority to tomorrow’s meeting between Russian and U.S. officials in the capital of Saudi Arabia. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will sit down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin’s Foreign Policy Advisor Yuri Ushakov on Feb. 18 for exploratory, in-depth discussions, the first serious discussions between the world’s two largest nuclear powers in three years.
Neither Ukraine’s puppet-president Volodymyr Zelenskyy nor any European officials will be present.
The Riyadh meeting follows swiftly upon the Feb. 12 phone discussion between Presidents Trump and Putin, initiated by President Trump, in which both Presidents expressed a commitment to restoring normal relations. Less than a week later, their teams are getting to work.
Witkoff told Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” that he and Waltz will be “having meetings at the direction of the President,” and hope to make “some really good progress with regard to Russia-Ukraine,” AP reported. For her part, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters that the aim of the meeting is to determine how serious Russia is about wanting peace in Ukraine and whether detailed negotiations can be started. “The goal, obviously, for everyone is to determine if this is something that can move forward,” she said.
For his part, Lavrov cited the agreement between the two Presidents to end the “absolutely abnormal period” in their relations. “When we go to negotiations on the proposal of our partners, first of all, we always want to hear them out,” he told reporters, according to RT. “The presidents agreed that it is necessary to resume dialogue on all issues that can be resolved one way or another with the participation of Russia and the U.S.… Therefore, we will listen to our American counterparts and, of course, we will be ready to respond. Then we will report to our leaders who will take decisions on future steps.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also characterized the discussions as focusing “primarily on restoring the entire complex of Russian-American relations. It will also be devoted to the preparation of possible negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement and the organization of a meeting between the two Presidents.”
To a question from TASS today about possible real-time communication between the team in Riyadh and President Putin, Putin’s Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a full report would be presented to Putin on their return to Moscow, but “there is an opportunity to do it either way … if any urgent reports are needed, then all communication opportunities are available.”
Ushakov, whose comments were similar to those of Lavrov and Peskov on the expected scope of the meeting, told reporters that Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, might join the discussions in Riyadh. Dmitriev was reportedly involved in last week’s prisoner exchange between the two countries, AP reported.