“Intensive work” is needed before a meeting between the two leaders, says top Kremlin aide after 4.5 hours of negotiations in Saudi Arabia.

Negotiations Tuesday between Russia and the United States led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio have concluded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The bilateral talks lasted about 4.5 hours and, according to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s top aide Yuri Ushakov, the negotiations “went well.”

“There was a very serious conversation on all the issues we wanted to raise,” Ushakov told journalists after the meeting, according to Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

Ukraine’s future was on the agenda — Russia has been waging a full-scale war there for three years and the U.S. is determined to claim swaths of the country’s mineral wealth — though Kyiv was left out of the discussions.

According to Ushakov, the two sides agreed to take into account each other’s interests and advance bilateral relations, and Moscow and Washington will work toward setting up a meeting between their leaders.

However, a summit between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump is unlikely to take place next week, as “intensive work” is needed first, according to the aide.

The U.S. State Department called the meeting an “important step forward” as Lavrov and Rubio agreed to form high-level negotiating teams to discuss a settlement to the war in Ukraine “as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.”

“The United States wants to stop the killing and is using its strength in the world to bring countries together,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told journalists after the talks.

However, ahead of the meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said any talks about peace in Ukraine without Kyiv’s involvement would “bring no result.”

In addition to the settlement teams, Washington and Moscow agreed to establish a consultation mechanism to address “irritants” in bilateral relations with “with the goal of taking the necessary steps to normalize the operation of the respective diplomatic missions” and “lay the groundwork for future cooperation on issues of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities.”

After the bilateral talks, Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, told Reuters that U.S. and Russian officials had separate discussions on future economic cooperation, a spokesperson for the RDIF said.

Soon after the talks ended in Riyadh, an air raid alert began in Kyiv where local authorities announced the threat of incoming Russian ballistic missiles.

While Russia and the U.S. discussed Ukraine, Zelenskyy was in Turkey, where he opened the renovated Ukrainian Embassy in Ankara and met Erdoğan on Tuesday.

“In the past, Russia delivered ultimatum after ultimatum and offered no actual diplomacy to Ukraine. Instead, it invaded Ukraine and left us no other option but to fight back,” Zelenskyy said.

“Russia demanded we decrease the number of armed forces, recognize occupied territories, they wanted a pro-Russian government to take control” he said. “Now I sense a similar attitude already from representatives of Russia and the United States … talking about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

“Since we didn’t accept the ultimatums at the most difficult moment, where did people get a feeling Ukraine is going to accept it now?” he asked.

by Csongor Koromi
Credits: politico.eu