His landing at Riyadh airport has materialized the Ukrainian nightmare: being absent from negotiations with Russia. This Monday, the head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, took his first steps on Saudi territory, confirming a meeting with a Russian delegation this Tuesday, February 18 in the capital of Saudi Arabia.
Shortly after his arrival, his counterpart Fayçal Ben Farhane came to meet him. Later in the day, Marco Rubio spoke with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salmane (MBS). According to a head of the State Department, the Secretary of State met MBS in the early evening. Far from the resolution of the war in Ukraine, their tête-à-tête was in particular to address the situation in the Gaza Strip, after the proposal of the American president to take control of it.
What members of the Russian and American delegations will be present?
On the United States side, the head of diplomacy will therefore attend the Russian-American meeting on Tuesday. In April 2024, the current Secretary of State, equivalent to the Minister of French Foreign Affairs, was one of the 15 Republican senators to have voted against a military aid program of $ 95 billion for Ukraine. Since his appointment to the Trump administration, Marco Rubio has been closer to Donald Trump’s ideas.
Present with him in Riyadh this Tuesday: Mike Waltz, National Security Advisor to the White House. A political official with contradictory discourse. At the start of the Russian invasion, in 2022, the one who was at the time representing the United States called Joe Biden to provide more weapons to Ukraine. Shortly before the US election last November, he changed his line of driving, criticizing the sending of American aid to Europe.
Steve Witkoff will also represent the United States during this meeting. Business man, the current special envoy for the Middle East had no diplomatic experience until then. But being a longtime friend of Donald Trump seems to surpass all the skills required for this position.
For Russia, it is the head of diplomacy Sergei Lavrov who will be present during the meeting in Saudi Arabia. Appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by Vladimir Putin in 2004, he has always been a faithful support from the president, and has become, from 2022, a fervent war defender in Ukraine. Alongside him, Iouri Lavrov, diplomatic advisor to Vladimir Putin and former Russian ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2008.
What are the challenges of this preliminary meeting?
Aim to the “restoration of Russian-American relations”: this is the first issue described by the Kremlin this Monday. Questioned by the press, the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, added that this meeting would also be “devoted to the preparation of possible negotiations on the regulations [du conflit] Ukrainian”.
This preliminary meeting should also be used to prepare a tête-à-tête between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on Saudi territory. After a telephone interview on Wednesday February 12, the two heads of state had agreed to initiate “immediately” negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. This Sunday, the American billionaire confirmed the news, announcing that a meeting with his Russian counterpart “could be held very soon” even if “no date has been arrested”.
Russian presidential advisor Iouri Ouchakov stressed that, on the Ukrainian file, it was a question of “agreeing on how to start negotiations on Ukraine”. “I do not think we should see something that will be detailed or as an advance towards a sort of negotiation,” also nuanced the spokesperson for the US State Department, Tammy Bruce.
Why does the meeting take place in Saudi Arabia?
This choice is not without economic interests. Already in 2017, Donald Trump had made Saudi Arabia his first visit abroad as president, attracted by important financial contracts. This time again, the prospect of new Saudi investments in the United States, which could reach $ 600 billion according to MBS, weighed in the balance.
Saudi Arabia also has everything to win. By welcoming a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, she exhibits her growing role on the international diplomatic scene. For a long time to withdraw the conflict in Ukraine, Riyadh gradually established himself as a mediator of these talks.
What place will Ukraine occupy?
Large absent at the negotiation table, Ukraine is not invited to this meeting. Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed this information at the Munich conference, declaring that Ukraine “knew nothing” about the holding of these discussions and that it will not “participate”. Before adding that he does not wish “to decision on Ukraine without Ukraine, and of decision on Europe without Europe”.
In response to the Russian-American meeting where Volodymyr Zelensky is definitely not welcome, the director of communication for the Turkish presidency, Fahrettin Altun, announced on the social network X that Rece Tayyip Erdogan will receive the Ukrainian president in Ankara Tuesday February 18. And this, on the eve of a trip by Volodymyr Zelensky… in Saudi Arabia.