U.S. and Russia Pursue Partnership in a Head-Spinning Shift in Relations
The two sides met in Saudi Arabia for their most extensive discussions in years. In addition to Ukraine, business ties are on the table.
Anton Troianovski and Ismaeel Naar
Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Senior American and Russian officials agreed on Tuesday to establish teams to work toward ending the war in Ukraine and finding a path toward normalizing relations, in the most extensive negotiations between the two countries in more than three years.
After more than four hours of talks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that both sides had agreed to work on a peace settlement for Ukraine as well as to explore “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians,” both geopolitically and economically.
A senior Kremlin official, Yuri Ushakov, said that both sides had “a very serious discussion on all the issues that we wanted to touch on,” including preparations for a summit meeting between President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin.
The meeting was the latest striking swerve by the Trump administration in abandoning Western efforts to isolate Russia. Since Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its Western allies had moved vigorously to punish Russia for causing Europe’s most destructive war in generations.
Instead, the talks on Tuesday showed that Mr. Trump was eager to work with Russia to end the war — an approach that would most likely fulfill many of Mr. Putin’s demands — and that he was prepared to cast aside the worries of American allies in Europe.
The comments suggested that apprehensions in Europe and Ukraine may only deepen that the United States and Russia could try to strike their own peace deal, sidelining Kyiv and American allies. And Russia appeared to have used Tuesday’s talks to cater to Mr. Trump’s interest in profits and natural resources, arguing that American oil companies and others stood to gain hundreds of billions of dollars by again doing business in Russia.
The meeting came less than a week after Mr. Trump’s lengthy phone call with Mr. Putin and took place at a palace in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has been seeking to elevate his country’s role on the world stage.
Michael Waltz, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser; and Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy and a longtime friend of Mr. Trump, joined Mr. Rubio for the meeting.
The Russian delegation included Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister; Mr. Ushakov, Mr. Putin’s foreign policy adviser; and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.
“We weren’t just listening to each other, but we heard each other,” Mr. Lavrov said afterward. “I have reason to believe that the American side started to better understand our positions.”
Mr. Dmitriev, who worked with Mr. Witkoff to broker the release last week of an American schoolteacher jailed in Russia, said he would seek to restart economic cooperation with the United States to “rebuild communication, rebuild trust, rebuild success.”
“U.S. oil majors have had very successful business in Russia,” Mr. Dmitriev said in a brief interview on Tuesday before the talks began, offering an example of how the countries could rebuild business ties. “We believe at some point they will be coming back, because why would they forego these opportunities that Russia gave them to have access to Russian natural resources?”
Leading Western oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, joined many other businesses in pulling out of Russia three years ago amid outrage over Mr. Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Energy and economic ties were among the topics of the call between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump last week, according to Mr. Trump and the Kremlin. After Tuesday’s meeting, Mr. Rubio described a three-step plan for what the United States and Russia planned to do next.
First, he said, both countries would negotiate how to remove restrictions placed on each other’s embassies in Moscow and Washington, which are operating with skeleton staffs after years of tit-for-tat expulsions.
In addition, he said, the United States would engage with Russia about “parameters of what an end” to the Ukraine war would look like.
“There’s going to be engagement and consultation with Ukraine, with our partners in Europe and others,” Mr. Rubio told reporters. “But ultimately, the Russian side will be indispensable to this effort.”
And finally, he said, Russia and the United States would explore new partnerships, both in geopolitics and in business. He described them as “the extraordinary opportunities that exist should this conflict come to an acceptable end.”
Russian commentators have expressed the hope that talks with the Trump administration and a peace deal in Ukraine could pave the way for the United States to lift the severe sanctions imposed by the Biden administration against Moscow.
Mr. Dmitriev said he would present the American delegation with an estimate showing that American companies lost $300 billion by leaving Russia.
“We need to put all facts on the table and then have a discussion based on facts, and not just ideological dogmas,” Mr. Dmitriev said. “We saw that President Trump is focused on having success.”
Tuesday’s discussions were the first time after Mr. Putin’s invasion in early 2022 that broad delegations of senior American and Russian officials are known to have met in person.
But in Europe and Ukraine, the news of Tuesday’s planned talks had been met with confusion and concern. While Mr. Rubio characterized the talks as preliminary, there was widespread criticism in Europe that Mr. Trump’s approach to Russia had not been coordinated with allies of the United States. And Ukrainian officials insisted they would reject any agreement about their country that was negotiated without their involvement.
“We cannot recognize any agreements made about us without us,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Monday.
Mr. Zelensky has also been in the Gulf region this week, where several countries have sought to use their relationships with Moscow, Kyiv and the West to play roles as mediators in the Ukraine war. On Monday, Mr. Zelensky was in the United Arab Emirates to discuss prisoner exchanges and the return of Ukrainian children from Russia.
On Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky was set to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
Ukrainian officials have also said that Mr. Zelensky will be in Saudi Arabia this week, but that Ukraine was not invited to the U.S.-Russia talks. Mr. Ushakov, the Kremlin foreign policy adviser, said there were no plans for a three-way meeting with the Ukrainians.
“We came here to hold negotiations with American colleagues,” he said.
For Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed, hosting the talks has offered a major opportunity to solidify his status as a global leader with influence that extends beyond the Middle East.
The Saudis, in a Foreign Ministry statement, said they were welcoming the Russians and Americans “as part of the Kingdom’s efforts to enhance security and peace in the world.”
Like other countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has avoided taking sides in the Ukraine war.
It has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine while cultivating close ties with Russia. When a Ukraine peace conference was held in Switzerland last June that excluded Russia, Saudi Arabia and the neighboring United Arab Emirates refused to sign the final joint statement.
On Tuesday, two senior Saudi officials — Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the foreign minister; and Musaed al-Aiban, the national security adviser — were seated at the table with the American and Russian officials at the start of their meeting.
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. More about Anton Troianovski
Ismaeel Naar is an international reporter for The Times, covering the Gulf states. He is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. More about Ismaeel Naar
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