U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) late Sunday, both against the backdrop of expected peace talks on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Rubio is in Riyadh together with U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. But Rubio has not disclosed who exactly he will be meeting in the Saudi capital.
Russia’s Kommersant newspaper as well as Axios in the U.S. reported that the talks will take place on Tuesday. According to Kommersant, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is preparing to visit Riyadh.
“One phone call does not make peace,” Rubio said on CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “One phone call does not solve a war as complex as this one, but I can tell you that Donald Trump is the only leader in the world that could potentially begin that process.”
He added later: “I said yesterday that ‘peace’ is not a noun, it’s a verb. It’s an action. You have to take concrete steps toward it.”
Rubio’s trip follows last week’s call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders agreed to have their teams start negotiations “immediately” as they announced a prospective face-to-face meeting in Saudi Arabia.
Zelenskyy on Saturday expressed surprise over the planned meeting in Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that the American side earlier said Kyiv was invited.
“I saw that someone said that there would be a meeting in Saudi Arabia. I do not know what it is,” Zelenskyy said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Zelenskyy, who is in the UAE for a visit that was planned earlier, said he also wants to visit Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but does not plan to meet U.S. or Russian officials.
At the Munich conference, top European officials stressed Ukraine must be directly involved in any talks between Trump and Putin. The EU has not been invited to the negotiating table.
Some European leaders are scheduled to meet in Paris for emergency summit on security guarantees on Ukraine, as the role of Kyiv and Europe in expected peace talks is increasingly unclear.
