American officials prepared on Sunday to start talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, but European leaders say that President Trump will make a clear role for them and Kiev in the process. They were rushing to formulate a response to a pro-reconciliation that seemed unfulfilled.
The Russian ambassador for Saudi Arabia is scheduled to hold talks this week and met with the Kingdom's foreign minister on Sunday. Two Trump administration officials – national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle Eastern envoy Steve Witkov will fly to Saudi Arabia and join Secretary of State Marco Rubio for negotiations, Witkov said on Sunday morning. Fox News futures mentioned in an interview.
The final preparation follows a surge in diplomatic debate over the past few days, including a conversation between Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei V. Lavrov.
On Sunday, Rubio said in an interview with CBS News from Jerusalem that “Because of the broader conversations that involve Ukraine, it would involve the end of the war and allies from around the world.” . Especially in Europe, if the opportunity presents itself, we explore it.”
The meeting with Russia, although preliminary, will show his apparent determination to launch an accelerated timetable for Trump's deal and to negotiate with Russia alone, at least for now. .
Ukraine will not participate, Andriy Yahmack, head of President Voldy Mirzelensky's presidential office, confirmed Sunday in a post on the Telegram social networking site. He said Ukraine likes to reach a common plan for negotiations with the Trump administration before meeting with the Russian delegation.
“We had no meetings or plans,” Yermak wrote. “The President has made it clear that agreements reached without Ukraine's involvement are unacceptable. Security guarantees must include the United States. We will never make decisions that go against Ukraine's interests. there is no.”
In the initiative originally encouraged by Ukraine, the Trump administration is in talks to secure a portion of its profits from Ukraine's natural resources in exchange for security aid. However, when the administration's proposal arrives, Zelensky rejects the terms, and under that the US will receive half of its profits.
Zelensky said some refused. Because it did not provide guarantees of US support in the war in exchange. It is not clear whether US demands are linked to future aid or are considered compensation for the assistance already provided.
Zelensky's refusal to the proposal prompted a responsibilities from his national security advisor, Waltz. Zelensky said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that it was “very wise” to accept the deal, saying, “Americans deserve a return and in return for the billions they invested in. He added that it is worth having. This war.”
Leaders of France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Danish, as well as top officials from the European Union and NATO held an emergency meeting in Paris on Monday to war on Ukraine and European security. We will discuss. French officials said on Sunday. The aim is to coordinate the Trump administration's response to the launch of talks with Russia without European participation.
It follows a Sunday meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union.
In an interview with Fox News, Waltz denied that Europeans were excluded from negotiations. “They may not like some of the sequences that are happening in some of these negotiations,” he said. “I have to push back the notion that they are not consulted. They are definitely.”
Waltz added that US negotiators will “connect everyone if necessary” and designated that Europeans are expected to “provide long-term military guarantees.”
Zelensky said he was in Saudi Arabia this week but didn't identify him when. He made it clear he didn't want to enter into negotiations before deciding what would ensure that the West would be willing to provide to ensure that the West would not infringe on the ceasefire. As of Saturday, he said there was no such guarantee from the United States.
In an interview with NBC on Sunday, he reiterated that he would “never accept” peace negotiations that settled between Russia and the United States without Ukraine.
When asked if he felt he had a seat at the table now, Zelensky did not respond directly. He said he relied on it. He told Trump that Putin had “a liar.”
In Moscow, a foreign ministry spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. However, on Sunday, Russian state television released an interview with Putin's spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov. He reaffirmed Russia's new optimism about negotiations with the US after years of diplomatic isolation by the Biden administration.
“We're talking about peace, not war now,” Peskov said. “Based on President Trump's statement, we are solving the issues through dialogue.”
Russia and Ukraine have not met for in-person meetings in nearly three years. The direct Russian-Ukrainian talks first mediated by Belarus and Turkey began at the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but were unraveled six weeks later. They were no longer accepted after Russia suffered from defeat on the battlefield and human rights violations by the Russian army became apparent in the town of Bucha.
Russia then lost about half of the territory it acquired in the invasion, but for a year, it was attacking the slow, bloody motion in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, travelling about 30 miles down the front line. Ukraine has a pocket of Russian territory, which it acquired in the Kursk region six months ago, and uses it as leverage to participate in meetings.
But for now, Ukrainians who have endured combat, missile attacks, and hundreds of thousands of casualties to civilians fight a near deadlock with Russia are not welcomed about their future without their voices The prospects for negotiations remained.
“I don't think this is completely understandable, but of course it pisses me off,” said 19-year-old Vladyslava Bilova, a Kiev student, about the exclusion of Ukraine from the start of the talk. “It's strange to determine the fate of the country that is not participating in the process.”
Viktor Reuta, a soldier, 49, said the Ukrainians would not accept the reconciliation forced upon them. “They can try to impose whatever they want,” he said. “We've already been at war and we've realized that we can speak for ourselves.”
The exclusion of Ukraine from the start of consultations is “very uneasy and even scary,” said pharmacist Vita Voinovska. She said, “It feels like the three of them are standing together, and the two are talking to each other, while the third is actually facing problems – standing there as if they didn't exist It's there.”
Edward Wong Report from Washington, Report from Olexandra Mikolisin from Kiev Anton Troiannovsky From Berlin.
