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Senior US and Ukrainian officials have arrived in Saudi Arabia for high-stakes meetings on Tuesday aimed at repairing a severely damaged relationship that has left embattled Kyiv without Washington’s support.
Ukraine’s delegation, led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, will meet the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and other senior White House officials on what is seen as neutral ground in the Saudi city of Jeddah.
It will be the first official meeting for the two governments since a disastrous Oval Office argument between Zelenskyy and Donald Trump, after which the US leader cut off crucial military assistance and intelligence-sharing.
The two presidents will not take part in the talks, although Zelenskyy was in Jeddah on Monday to meet the saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose government has played a mediating role between Ukraine and Russia.
Zelenskyy has also sent his foreign and defence ministers to Jeddah for the talks. “On our side, we are fully committed to constructive dialogue, and we hope to discuss and agree on the necessary decisions and steps,” he said in a post on X. “Realistic proposals are on the table. The key is to move quickly and effectively.”
Russian forces – emboldened after Ukraine lost support from its biggest backer – have seized the moment, launching barrages of ballistic missile attacks while attempting to surround thousands of Ukrainian troops who had maintained a seven-month foothold in the Russian region of Kursk.
The White House has framed Trump’s Ukraine policy as intended to achieve a lasting “peace” but the president has focused primarily on pressuring Zelenskyy to hand over his country’s mineral wealth to the US.
After the Oval Office crisis, Zelenskyy sought to patch up ties with the US leader. The Ukrainian president says he is willing to sign a minerals deal, even though it looks unlikely he will gain US security guarantees that Kyiv sees as vital to prevent future Russian attacks.
With US backing in doubt, Zelenskyy has sought to shore up European support. Still, he has been put under pressure to salvage the relationship with Washington, which has been Ukraine’s biggest backer since the 2022 Russian invasion.
A spokesperson for the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he had spoken to Trump on Monday and expressed a hope for “a positive outcome to the [Saudi] talks that would enable US aid and intelligence sharing to be restarted”.
Starmer’s spokesperson said UK and Ukrainian officials had also spoken over the weekend and “they remained committed to a lasting peace”.
Trump aide Steve Witkoff said Washington expected substantial progress in Jeddah. Asked on Fox News if he thought Zelenskyy could sign the minerals deal this week, Witkoff said: “I am really hopeful. All the signs are very, very positive.” Intelligence sharing will be discussed at the meetings, Witkoff added.
However, Rubio, the US secretary of state, told reporters en route to Jeddah that there were still more details to be worked out on the minerals deal.
NBC News reported on Sunday that Trump would require more than just the minerals deal in order to resume deliveries of military aid and renew intelligence sharing with Ukraine. The outlet reported that Trump expected Ukraine to agree to key concessions for US support to resume, including a willingness to concede territory to Russia as part of peace talks and movement toward elections as well.
NBC and other US media have also reported that Trump may want to see Zelenskyy step down as part of that process. That stance has not been publicly confirmed by the White House.
However, European allies have been reassured that the US is close to resuming military aid and intelligence sharing, and Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One that the US was “just about” ready to resume aid. “We want to do anything we can to get Ukraine serious about getting something done,” he said.
The Ukrainian side is expected to propose a peace plan that features a halt to drone and missile strikes, as well as a suspension of military activity in the Black Sea. Zelenskyy has said the proposal would be a test of Russia’s commitment to ending the war. So far, however, Vladimir Putin has shown no interest in a ceasefire.
Trump has said he would consider ending the suspension of intelligence-sharing with Kyiv and Ukrainian troops remain under intense pressure.
Russia’s defence ministry has said its forces had recaptured three more settlements in the Kursk region and Russia’s ex-president Dmitry Medevdev claimed Kyiv’s forces were nearly surrounded. “The lid of the smoking cauldron is almost closed. The offensive continues,” he posted on Telegram.
Russian forces were reported to be closing in on the Ukrainian-held Russian town of Sudzha. On Sunday, Ukraine’s general staff said it had repelled an extraordinary attack by Russian sabotage and assault groups via a gas pipeline in the area. About 100 Russian soldiers spent four days crawling through the nine-mile-long (15km) pipeline that leads to Sudzha’s outskirts.
Inside Ukraine, the country’s border guard said Russian forces were attempting to create an active fighting zone in the north-eastern region of Sumy, across the border from Kursk.
Kyiv’s top general, however, rejected reports that Ukrainian troops fighting in the Kursk region were at risk of encirclement by Russian forces backed by North Korean troops.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, who said he was visiting the forces fighting in Kursk without providing an exact location, made the remark in a statement on social media.
“A number of settlements on the border, the names of which appear in the reports of Russian propagandists, no longer actually exist – they have been destroyed by the aggressor’s shelling,” Syrskyi said.
“Despite the involvement of a significant number of Russian troops in the offensive, reinforced by North Korean infantry, the enemy is suffering significant losses in manpower and equipment,” he added.
Trump suggested this weekend that Ukraine may not be able to survive in the war against Russia, even with support from the US.
In an interview with Fox News, while defending his decision to cut support to Ukraine, he said: “Well, it may not survive anyway.”
Trump also said that Zelenskyy took money from the US under the Biden administration like “candy from a baby”. He repeated his claim that Zelenskyy was not “grateful” but did describe him as “smart” and “tough”.
Additional reporting by Aletha Adu
