The News
Russia and the US agreed Tuesday to appoint teams to negotiate ending Moscow’s war in Ukraine, after high-level diplomats from both countries met for talks in Saudi Arabia. The bilateral meeting, to which neither Ukraine nor the European Union were invited, met with swift criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who told reporters at a press conference in Turkey Tuesday that “nobody decides anything behind our back.”
The Ukrainian leader “looked visibly tired and upset” at the meeting, according to the BBC: Zelenskyy likely knows that he has only so much leverage over the US, which Kyiv depends on to defend itself against Russia.
Meanwhile, a Kremlin official described the Riyadh meeting as “constructive,” with a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin likely to follow at some point soon.
The talks signal the most significant step toward normalizing relations between Washington and Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022; during the Tuesday meeting, diplomats also discussed “historic economic and investment opportunities” for Russia and the US if the conflict ended. Such a rebalancing of business and diplomatic ties would mark a major departure from the Biden administration, The Washington Post noted, which led Kyiv’s allies to impose crippling economic sanctions on Russia.
SIGNALS
Putin pulls Russia and the US closer together
While US delegates have emphasized that they are seeking a ceasefire resolution that will benefit both sides, the reaction in Russia has been a sense of victory, the Center for European Policy Analysis wrote: Russian state media pundits have characterized US President Donald Trump as doing Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s work for him, while pro-Kremlin experts have said the new Trump administration has exceeded “even their highest expectations.” Through the talks, Putin may be seeking “to exploit Trump’s desire to be seen as swift and decisive,” Carnegie Politika argued, enabling Russia’s push into Eastern Europe.
Saudi Arabia makes soft power gains as host
The Riyadh venue underlines Saudi Arabia’s aspirations to become a “global actor capable of successfully mediating international conflicts,” CNN wrote; a local commentator described the meeting as a “prestigious [event] and enhances the Saudi soft power regionally and globally.” The Gulf nation has increasingly aligned its politics along neutral lines — most notably through its ongoing rapprochement with Israel — at least in part to maximize global investment as Riyadh seeks to diversify the economy from oil. When asked about the Saudi’s role in the meeting, the CEO of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund told Semafor’s Hadley Gamble, the talks “couldn’t have been done in a more positive manner, and couldn’t have been done without Saudi.”
Trump’s transactional approach stokes fears of ‘abandonment’ in Europe
NATO had anticipated that US President Donald Trump would pursue a transactional foreign policy approach, yet the alliance, which depends on US support, has nonetheless been caught off guard by Trump’s Russia outreach, The Economist noted. Officials in Europe are increasingly feeling a “fear of abandonment,” the outlet wrote, with some even comparing the current trajectory to 1945’s Yalta Conference, which saw Europe carved into Russian and Western spheres of influence. A Chatham House analyst argued in The Kyiv Independent that Trump could seek to use a peace deal with Russia as a “quid pro quo,” not limited to expecting Moscow “turn a blind eye” on his stated aim of US control over Greenland.