Russia’s conversations in the United States in Saudi Arabia are prepared beyond Ukraine

Senior to Saudi Arabia for more than four hours on Tuesday for the most extensive negotiations between the two countries in at least three years, since President Trump presses to end the war in Ukraine and the Kremlin seeks warmer ties with Washington.

The State Department said later that Russians and Americans had agreed sides ”

Before the conversations in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, Russian officials said they would seek “normalization” with the United States, even considering the possibility that the main American oil companies could return to Russia.

Ukraine and Europe watched from a distance with deep apprehension, amid fears that Trump could try to force a peace agreement in Ukraine that would be favorable to Russia.

The meeting, which occurs less than a week after Mr. Trump’s long phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin de Russia, was briefly postponed for noon sentences before resuming.

Trump later said that the two leaders had talked about “the great benefit” that the United States and Russia “will one day have one day working together” and that they had agreed to “begin negotiations immediately” to end the war in Ukraine.

The US delegation was directed by Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State; Michael Waltz, the National Security Advisor; and Steve Witkoff, the envoy of Trump’s Middle East and a Trump friend for a long time.

The delegation met Tuesday at the Diriyah Palace in Riad with Sergey V. Lavrov, Minister of Russia; and Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy advisor to Mr. Putin. Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Sovereign Fund of Russian wealth, was expected to participate in conversations later in the day.

Mr. Ushakov told journalists after landing in Riyadh that the goal of conversations would be “to start a true normalization of the relationship between us and Washington.”

Mr. Dmitriev, who worked with Mr. Witkoff to negotiate the launch last week of an imprisoned American school teacher in Russia, said he would seek to restart economic cooperation with the United States to “rebuild communication, the confidence of the trust, reconstruction success. “

“American oil specialties have had a very successful business in Russia,” Dmitriev said in a brief interview on Tuesday before conversations began, offering an example of how countries could rebuild commercial ties. “We believe that at some point they will return, because why would they renounce these opportunities that Russia gave them to have access to Russian natural resources?”

The main Western oil companies, including Mobil Exxon, joined many other companies to retire from Russia three years ago amid the outrage due to the large -scale invasion of Ukraine of Mr. Putin.

Last week last week, Trump and Kremlin and Kremlin and Kremlin.

Russian commentators have expressed hope that conversations with the Trump administration and a peace agreement in Ukraine can pave the way for the United States to lift the severe sanctions imposed by the administration Biden against Moscow.

Mr. Dmitriev seemed to participate with the Trump team by addressing the interest of the US president in gains and natural resources.

He said he would present an estimate to the US delegation that shows that US companies lost $ 300 billion when Russia left.

“We need to put all the facts on the table and then have a discussion based on facts, and not only ideological dogmas,” Dmitriev said. “We saw that President Trump focuses on being successful.”

Tuesday’s discussions are the first time after Mr. Putin’s invasion at the beginning of 2022 that the broad delegations of high US and Russian officials who have met in person are known.

The meeting is another step in the attempt of Mr. Trump to end the diplomatic isolation of Russia that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sought to enforce after the invasion, a step that the Trump administration says it is necessary to stop The war.

“If there will be the possibility of progress here towards peace, we will have to talk to the Russians,” Rubio said in the CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

But in Europe and Ukraine, the news of the planned conversations on Tuesday has encountered confusion and concern. While Rubio characterized conversations as preliminary, there were generalized criticisms in Europe that Mr. Trump’s approach to Russia had not been coordinated with the United States allies. And the Ukrainian officials insisted that they would reject any agreement on their country that was negotiated without their participation.

“We cannot recognize any agreement on us without us,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Monday.

Mr. Zelensky has also been in the Gulf region this week, where several countries have tried to use their relations with Moscow, kyiv and the West to perform roles as mediators in the Ukraine War. On Monday, Mr. Zelensky was in the United Arab Emirates to discuss the exchanges of prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children in Russia.

On Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Türkiye in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

Ukrainian officials have also said that Mr. Zelensky will be in Saudi Arabia this week, but that Ukraine was not invited to Russia’s conversations in the United States. Mr. Ushakov, Kremlin’s foreign policy advisor, said there were no three -way meeting with the Ukrainians.

“We came here to keep negotiations with American colleagues,” he said.

For the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, the heir prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the host of the conversations has offered a great opportunity to solidify his status as a global leader with an influence that extends beyond the Middle East.

The Saudi, in a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said they were welcoming the Russians and the Americans “as part of the kingdom’s efforts to improve security and peace in the world.”

Like other countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has avoided taking sides in the Ukraine War.

He has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine while growing nearby ties with Russia. When a Ukraine peace conference was held in Switzerland last June that excluded Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arabic neighbors refused to sign the final joint statement.

On Tuesday, two senior Saudi officials: Prince Faisal Bin Farhan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs; And Musaed Al-Aiban, the national security advisor, sat at the table with American and Russian officials at the beginning of their meeting.

Andrew E. Kramer Reports contributed by Kyiv, Ukraine.