Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Saudi Arabia ahead of his team having talks with America’s top diplomat.
Mr Zelenskyy will not be at the meeting with US secretary of state Marco Rubio, but Mr Zelenskyy’s team will try to improve relations following his disastrous 28 February visit to Washington, which descended into an Oval Office argument with President Donald Trump and vice president JD Vance.
Saudi state television reported that Mr Zelenskyy’s had arrived in Jeddah, where the Ukraine-US summit will take place on Tuesday.
Mr Zelenskyy with Prince Saud bin Mishaal, and Saudi commerce minister Majid bin Abdullah al Qasabi. Pic: AP
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Mr Zelenskyy is due to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after sunset this evening, following the end of the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Mr Rubio is also en route to Jeddah as well. He is not due to meet Mr Zelenskyy but the secretary of state will meet Prince Mohammed.
The Ukrainian team will try to convince the US to restore military aid and intelligence that had helped Kyiv since Russia‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Speaking to reporters aboard his plane, Mr Rubio said if Ukraine and the US reach an understanding acceptable to Mr Trump, that could accelerate his administration’s push to peace talks.
“What we want to know is, are they interested [in] entering some sort of peace conversation and general outlines of the kinds of things they could consider, recognising that it has been a costly and bloody war for the Ukrainians,” Mr Rubio said.
“They have suffered greatly and their people have suffered greatly. And it’s hard in the aftermath of something like that to even talk about concessions, but that’s the only way this is going to end and prevent more suffering.”
‘We want Ukraine to be serious’ about peace
He added: “I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do. I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer spoke to Mr Trump on Monday ahead of the US-Ukraine meeting.
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A Downing Street readout of the call said that Sir Keir told the president that “UK officials had been speaking to Ukraine officials over the weekend and they remain committed to a lasting peace”.
“The prime minister said he hoped there would be a positive outcome to the talks that would enable US aid and intelligence sharing to be restarted,” the statement said.
“The two leaders also spoke about the economic deal they had discussed at the White House and the prime minister welcomed the detailed conversations that had already happened to move this forward. Both leaders agreed to stay in touch.”
Meanwhile, the European Union agreed last week to boost the continent’s defences and free up hundreds of billions of euros for security in response to the Trump administration’s shift in policy towards Ukraine.
A US intelligence official said a pause on sharing US intelligence that can be used for offensive purposes by Ukrainian forces remains in effect.
The official suggested that progress could be made towards reinstating intelligence sharing with Ukraine during the Saudi talks.
