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The meeting in Riyadh was an important milestone for achieving peace in Ukraine, US President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman has said
The Russian-American talks in Riyadh were a “truly monumental step” towards ending the Ukraine conflict, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Tuesday.
The teams, led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met earlier that day in Saudi Arabia’s capital to lay the groundwork for a lasting peace between Moscow and Kiev. They also discussed normalization of ties between Russia and the US, which were de facto frozen by the Biden administration in 2022 as part of its strategy to “isolate” Moscow on the world stage.
“This is a truly monumental step towards peace in the Russia-Ukraine war,” Leavitt said. She criticized President Donald Trump’s predecessor, former President Joe Biden, for abandoning diplomacy in favor of a pressure campaign against Russia.
“The previous administration had no negotiations, no discussions, really no diplomacy in this effort,” Leavitt stated.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have been minimal for the three years since the Biden administration severed most ties with Russia and imposed sweeping sanctions in response to the Ukraine conflict. During his election campaign, Trump vowed to negotiate directly with the Russians and focus on “saving lives.”
After the talks, which lasted 4.5 hours, Lavrov said that both sides had agreed to work towards a gradual restoration of ties and the removal of the “artificial barriers” erected by the Biden administration.
Ukrainian and EU officials say they were blindsided by the negotiations in Riyadh, as well as Trump’s February 12 phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has expressed frustration that the meeting in Riyadh took place without his approval, saying Kiev would not accept any negotiations held “without Ukraine.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump argued that the Ukrainians were in no position to complain because they had had an opportunity to reach a more favorable deal with Moscow after the conflict broke out in February of 2022, but failed to do so.
On Tuesday, Leavitt said the US remains in contact with its European allies, as well as with Kiev. “We are ensuring that all parties are heard,” she said.
Russia insists that any settlement must address the “root causes” of the crisis, including NATO’s expansion in Europe since the 1990s and Kiev’s aspirations to join the US-led military bloc. Putin has said Ukraine must become a neutral country and renounce its claims to Crimea, as well as the four other regions that voted to join Russia after 2014.
