Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his advisers will meet a group of senior Russian officials in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 18, the Kremlin announced on Feb. 17.
Peskov said the meeting would also lay the groundwork for a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would lead Moscow’s delegation and would be joined by Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov. The pair are due to fly to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Feb. 17.
Peskov said the talks will be primarily focused on “restoring the entire complex of U.S.–Russian relations, as well as preparing possible talks on the Ukrainian settlement and organizing a meeting of the two presidents.”
The Trump administration is moving quickly to initiate a cease-fire and bring an end to the war in Ukraine, which began when Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
The Biden administration had broken off ties with Russia and refused to negotiate with Moscow until Putin withdrew all his forces from Ukrainian territory.
Following phone calls on Feb. 12, Trump announced Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were ready to come to the negotiating table to begin carving out an ultimate end to the conflict.
But Zelenskyy, speaking to journalists on a conference call from the United Arab Emirates, said Ukraine had not been invited to the Feb. 18 talks and that they would therefore “yield no results.”
Last week, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office: “I think President Putin wants peace, and President Zelenskyy wants peace, and I want peace. I just want to see people stop being killed.”
On Feb. 16, Trump told reporters Zelenskyy “will be involved” in the talks, but it is not clear whether Ukraine will have a seat at the table during the Feb. 18 discussions in Saudi Arabia.
A Ukrainian delegation is in Riyadh to pave the way for a possible visit by Zelenskyy, a Ukrainian official has said.
Witkoff Seeks ‘Good Progress’
Speaking on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Witkoff said he hoped the Feb. 18 talks would make “some really good progress with regard to Russia–Ukraine.”Witkoff did not respond to questions about whether Ukraine would have to give up a “significant portion” of its territory.
“Those are details, and I’m not dismissive of the details, they’re important,“ he said. ”But I think the beginning here is trust-building. It’s getting everybody to understand that this war does not belong continuing, that it should end. That’s what the president has directed us to do.”
Zelenskyy said Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, was due to arrive in Kyiv on Feb. 20 for “broad conversations about security guarantees.”
He said he hoped to bring Kellogg to the front line and hoped he would take what he learned back to the White House.
“After he goes back to the United States, we will have an understanding on when I will have a meeting with President Trump,” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president has said any deal to open up the country’s mineral resources to the United States would need to be underwritten by an agreement on security guarantees.
Ukraine and its allies in Europe have warned that without such guarantees, there would be nothing to stop Putin from invading and taking more territory.
Zelenskyy said he wanted weapons, economic support, and for Ukraine to become a member of NATO, something U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out last week.
The Ukrainian president also said he wants Kyiv to one day join the European Union, following in the footsteps of other former Soviet republics Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
On Feb. 15, Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelenskyy adviser, denied that Ukraine would be involved in the meeting.
“There is nothing on the negotiating table that would be worth discussing,” he told Ukrainian television.
