Russian and American officials are currently gathered in Saudi Arabia for talks regarding the conflict in Ukraine. Notably, representatives from Kyiv are not present at these discussions and have made it clear that any peace agreement must involve their participation.

This meeting in Riyadh signifies a notable shift in the Trump administration’s approach towards Moscow, moving away from the previous strategy of isolating Russia. The ultimate goal is to pave the way for a potential meeting between President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this month, Trump caused a stir by announcing that he had initiated talks with Putin, a move that stirred anxiety in Kyiv and among European leaders as it signaled a change in US foreign policy.

Ukrainian officials are not taking part in today’s meeting, and President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that his country will not accept the outcome of any discussions if Kyiv does not have a seat at the table.

‘We cannot recognise any things or agreements about us without us. And we will not recognise such agreements,’ Zelensky said, adding that previously ‘it was like bad manners to talk to an aggressor during wartime.’

It comes amid mounting fears in Europe that Trump will withdraw the US security umbrella over the continent and leave the Baltic states at Putin’s mercy.

Sir Keir Starmer called for the US to provide a ‘backstop’ for any deal in Ukraine yeserday as European leaders desperately tried to put on a united front in support of Kyiv ahead of today’s talks.

But the crisis summit in Paris ended in chaos, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz leaving early and saying he was ‘a little irritated’ by ‘premature’ plans being made ‘over Ukraine’s head’.

After Putin officials gloated that today’s talks would be ‘purely bilateral’ and would not include Ukrainian officials, US and Russian delegations were pictured this morning attending the watershed meeting at Riyadh’s Diriyah Palace.

The top officials in attendance include US secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff with Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov on the Russian side.

The talks mark a significant expansion of US-Russian contacts, nearly three years into a war that has seen ties fall to the lowest level in decades.

The recent US diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Kyiv and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that will not be favourable to them.

France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the UK on Monday to decide how to respond.

Sir Keir Starmer told a press conference following the three-hour talks at Elysee Palace that Europe ‘had to do more’ to protect the continent and reiterated his vow to send British soldiers to Ukraine.

Yet fractures appear to have already formed in any unified force patrolling the Ukraine-Russia border with Poland, Spain, and Italy joining Germany in raising doubts about the PM’s suggestion.

Scholz said calls for peacekeeping troops were ‘premature,’ adding: ‘I am even a little irritated by these debates, I want to say that quite frankly.

‘The discussion is being held over Ukraine’s head, over the outcome of peace talks that have not taken place and to which Ukraine has not said yes…

‘This is highly inappropriate, to put it bluntly, and honestly: we don’t even know what the outcome will be.’

Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, who the Kremlin said might join the meeting, declared that ‘good US-Russia relations are very important for the whole world.’ 

‘Only jointly can Russia and the US address lots of world problems, resolve for global conflicts and offer solutions,’ said Dmitriev, who added that he and his team would focus on economic issues at the talks. 

The Saudi-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya, citing the Russian delegation, described Moscow’s priority as ‘real normalisation with Washington’.

US officials have sought to cast today’s talks as a follow-up to the call between Trump and Putin and an initial contact between the two parties to determine whether Moscow is serious about ending the war.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters: ‘This is a follow-up on that initial conversation between Putin and President Trump about perhaps if that first step is even possible, what the interests are, if this can be managed.’

However the Kremlin suggested the discussions would cover ‘the entire complex of Russian-American relations’ as it seemingly seeks to make the most of its open communication with Washington.

Lavrov and then-US secretary of state Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the autumn of 2022, US and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington’s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks. 

Diriyah Palace sits across the street from Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter.

It is also just next to the Ritz Carlton hotel, which became well known in 2017 after de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman detained other princes and the country’s elite there as part of what the royal court called a crackdown on corruption, which also sidelined any potential challenge to his taking control of the kingdom.

Hosting the talks is a major step towards a goal Prince Mohammed has pursued throughout the war – putting the kingdom in the middle of diplomatic negotiations.

It has helped in prisoner negotiations and hosted Zelensky for an Arab League summit in the kingdom in 2023. Zelensky is set to travel to Saudi Arabia later this week.

For Prince Mohammed, once described as a ‘pariah’ by former US president Joe Biden over the 2018 killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, hosting such talks burnish the otherwise-tarnished image the West has for him.

Ahead of the summit, the Saudi daily newspaper Okaz described the moment as the ‘world’s eye on Riyadh’.

Writing in the London-based but Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, journalist Mishari al-Dhaidi described the summit as ‘a major step on the international political chess arena, revealing the status of Saudi Arabia and its positive influence for the benefit of the people all the people’.

Hosting the summit also balances the harsh criticism recently levied by the kingdom’s tightly controlled media at Trump over his repeated comments that he wants the US to ‘own’ the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the Israeli military offensive there since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

The Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank for a future state, something backed by the wider Arab world and nearly all of the international community.