The News
Ukraine and Russia traded aerial assaults and readied diplomatic offensives ahead of possible talks between Washington and Moscow in Saudi Arabia aimed at ending the war.
Kyiv’s drones hit an oil pipeline in southern Russia, while attacks on the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv left 100,000 people without heating.
The attacks came as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Riyadh, reportedly for talks with his Russian counterpart, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due in town Wednesday. Ukraine has not been invited to the talks.
At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin is assembling what Bloomberg characterized as a “team of heavyweights” for negotiations. Time is of the essence, with US President Donald Trump saying he could meet with Putin “very soon.”
European leaders were also set to gather for an emergency summit in Paris on Monday after being excluded from planned talks between the US and Russia over the war in Ukraine. Both the UK and Sweden have raised the possibility of committing troops to Ukraine as part of a post-war peacekeeping mission.
The Kremlin described the Saudi Arabia talks as aimed at “restoring the entire complex of Russian-American relations, and about preparing possible negotiations on Ukraine,” according to Russian state media.
The meetings come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Munich Security Conference attendees Saturday that the old US-Europe relationship was “ending,” and called for the creation of an “army of Europe” to bolster longterm security instead.