Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict could pave the way for improved U.S.–Russia economic and geopolitical ties.
The Trump administration took some early steps to warm the overall U.S.–Russia relationship on Feb. 18, as President Donald Trump pursues a peaceful settlement to the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war.
Following a meeting between the U.S. and Russian delegations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the State Department announced several new efforts to repair diplomatic channels with Moscow. These efforts would include establishing a new consultation mechanism to resolve issues complicating the U.S.–Russia relationship and to rebuild their diplomatic missions on each other’s soil.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff joined Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the meeting table in Riyadh on Feb. 18.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov led the Russian delegation. He was joined by Russian presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russia Direct sovereign wealth fund.
Going into the meeting, Lavrov said the talks would cover “the entire range of U.S.–Russian relations,” not just the Ukraine conflict.
In remarks shared with Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, Ushakov said the Riyadh meeting yielded “very serious conversation on all issues.“ Ushakov also said both sides agreed at the meeting to ”take into account each other’s interests.”
Trump has signaled an interest in meeting directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Ushakov said no date has been set, and it’s unlikely that a meeting will take place by next week.
“At some point, when things settle down, I’m going to meet with China, and I’m going to meet with Russia, in particular those two, and I’m going to say, ‘There’s no reason for us to be spending almost a trillion dollars on the military,’” Trump told reporters at the White House on Feb. 13.
The president said he would even open with a pitch for each of the three countries to cut their military budgets in half.
According to TASS, Dmitriev said both sides treated each other respectfully during the Riyadh talks, but he cautioned that no major diplomatic breakthrough had emerged.
“It is too early to talk about compromises. We can say that the sides started communicating with each other, started listening to each other, started the dialog,” he said.
By Ryan Morgan
