Trump Negotiators Open Ukraine Peace Talks With Russia In Saudi Arabia, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That Ukrainians And Europeans Were Being Consulted About The Future Of Ukraine And Europe

The Filing

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA. Senior officials from the Trump administration and the Russian Federation gathered Tuesday at the Diriyah Palace to open formal negotiations over the future of Ukraine, an event State Department officials confirmed was conducted entirely without the involvement of any Ukrainian, European, or other party with a verifiable stake in the future of Ukraine.

The four-and-a-half-hour session, led on the American side by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, was described by aides as an opportunity to restore normal channels with the Russian government and to settle the war in Ukraine 'in a serious, focused way,' meaning without distractions from the Ukrainians or the war's other named parties.

'We had a very good and frank exchange,' said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following the talks, expressing satisfaction that decades of American policy on European security had been delegated to two countries that were not in Europe. Lavrov added that he had been pleasantly surprised to find the U.S. delegation arriving with a starting position closer to Moscow's than to Kyiv's, an observation aides later confirmed was the product of careful preparation.

Sources within the administration described the venue choice as ideal, citing Saudi Arabia's established neutrality on the question of which European countries should continue to exist, and noted that holding the talks in the Gulf had allowed both sides to discuss the future borders of Ukraine without the inconvenient presence of Ukrainians familiar with them. President Trump, asked at Mar-a-Lago whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should have been invited, expressed mild irritation that anyone would suggest a country at war should help decide how the war ends, calling Zelensky 'not very popular' and noting that the Ukrainian leader had 'had three years' to negotiate his own conquest.

European foreign ministers convened a separate emergency summit in Paris the same day to discuss what one Élysée official described as 'the new American interest in resolving European wars from the outside,' and were assured by the State Department that they would be briefed on the outcome at a later, unspecified date.

At press time, the Trump administration was finalizing a follow-up framework calling for territorial concessions by Ukraine, a moratorium on Ukrainian NATO membership, and the partial lifting of sanctions on Russia, all to be presented to Kyiv on a take-it-or-leave-it basis as evidence of America's renewed commitment to diplomacy.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, who delivered on a campaign promise to end the war quickly by removing one of the parties to it.
§The Trump Organization, whose pending Gulf real estate deals in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Qatar were elevated by the administration's choice of host country for a defining foreign policy initiative.
§Vladimir Putin, who received bilateral talks with the United States, a path to sanctions relief, and a U.S. negotiating posture that started near Russia's stated objectives without requiring concessions to get there.
§The Russian Federation, whose three-year diplomatic isolation from the United States ended in a single afternoon at no documented cost.
§Sergey Lavrov, returned to the front of a State Department photo line for the first time since the 2022 invasion.
§Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, positioned as the global mediator of a European war, an outcome that further normalized the kingdom's relationships with the Trump family business.
§Steve Witkoff and the broader Trump real estate diplomatic faction, whose informal Gulf channels were retroactively credited with producing a foreign policy reset.
§Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, vindicated in his long-running prediction that Western support for Ukraine would dissolve faster than Russian resolve.
§The People's Republic of China, which welcomed any precedent in which a great power negotiates over smaller neighbors without inviting the smaller neighbors.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment