"Top Trump administration officials will meet with their Ukrainian counterparts in Saudi Arabia next week, as the White House seeks to set the stage for potential peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.
"The idea is to get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial cease-fire," said special envoy Steve Witkoff, who will travel with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national-security adviser Mike Waltz to the meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
"President Zelensky has demonstrated that he's intent on that good-faith path back," Witkoff said. "He's apologized. He's said that he's grateful. He said that he wants to work towards peace."
Later on Thursday, President Trump said he expected both Ukraine and Russia to sign a peace deal because they both had "no choice."
"I think what's going to happen is Ukraine wants to make a deal because I don't think they have a choice," he said in the Oval Office. "I also think that Russia wants to make a deal because, in a certain, different way, a different way that only I know, only I know they have no choice either."
The plans for the Riyadh trip were set after Trump abruptly cut off U.S. military assistance and intelligence to Kyiv following a contentious Oval Office meeting last week among Trump, his top aides and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"It is sort of like hitting a mule with a two by four across the nose. You got their attention," retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine, said of the cutoff. "Very candidly, they brought it on themselves."
Kellogg, who was speaking on Thursday at a conference of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, was less precise about what kind of pressure the Trump administration might bring to bear on Moscow to encourage a peace settlement. He said the U.S. might tighten enforcement of sanctions already imposed by the Biden administration this year, but that the Trump administration was still assessing Moscow's position.
Waltz, Rubio and Witkoff met with Russian officials in Riyadh in February to try to reset U.S.-Russian relations and lay the basis for eventual peace talks.
Trump has said he wants to quickly resolve the conflict with Ukraine. But he has taken no concrete steps to pressure the Kremlin since his inauguration. No negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have been set, and in recent days the Kremlin has doubled down on some of its demands.
On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow rejected a British and French plan to deploy peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, which the two members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization offered to ensure a future peace pact isn't violated.
The deployment of European troops would mean the "undisguised involvement of NATO countries in a war against the Russian Federation. It's impossible to allow this," he said.” [1]
1. World News: Top U.S. and Ukrainian Officials To Meet Next Week in Saudi Arabia. Cullison, Alan; Gordon, Michael R; Ward, Alexander. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 07 Mar 2025: A8.
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