‘You’ve Had a Seat at the Table for Three Years’ – Trump Thought Initial Talks With Russia Went ‘Very Well’

Speaking with reporters at his Florida resort home on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he thought the initial meetings with Russian officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, were “going very well,” and that President Volodymyr Zelensky has already had three years to “make a deal” with Moscow to end its full-scale invasion.

After the talks between the American and Russian delegations hosted by Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman (who had asked to include Ukraine as well), Trump said from Florida that he was “much more confident” of the teams reaching a resolution, saying: “[The talks] were very good. Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism.”

His delegation, led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, shared a meal of scallops and steak with the same Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, whom the US has sanctioned, and walked away with a plan for each side to develop a negotiating team.

“I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well,” Trump said.

Trump repeatedly quipped during his campaign that he would bring the war in Ukraine to an end “within 24 hours.” When asked on Tuesday, about a month into his new presidency, if he thought he would sit down with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin before the end of this month, he responded: “Probably.”

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Zelensky was infuriated not to be invited to the initial round of negotiations.

“Ukraine, Europe in a broad sense – and this includes the European Union, Turkey, and the UK – should be involved in conversations and the development of the necessary security guarantees with America regarding the fate of our part of the world,” Zelensky said.

Trump brushed off Zelensky’s concerns.

 “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” the president noted nonchalantly.

“Today I heard, oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve had a seat for three years, and a long time before that... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” Trump said.

US media was stunned at Trump’s comments that Ukraine had somehow started a war when Moscow in fact annexed Crimea and then its forces launched a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.

After a lunch of seared sea scallops and rib-eye steaks in the Saudi royal palace, Rubio, flanked by US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, tried to stress that Europe and Ukraine had not been sidelined, but rather that those sides have been consulted and will join discussions in the near future.

“The comment I would have on that is that during the three years as this conflict has raged, no one has been has been able to bring something together like what we saw today… No one is being sidelined,” Rubio said.

Waltz then stressed that Trump spoke with Zelensky right after his phone call with Putin, and that he spoke with the French president on Monday.

US special envoy to Russia and Ukraine, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Keith Kellogg will meet with Zelensky in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Paris will host a second round of European talks on Ukraine on Feb. 26 at the Elysée Palace.

Rare-earth deal ruffles feathers

One item that will very likely be discussed during Kellogg’s visit is Trump’s proposal to pay for future military aid to Ukraine in exchange for rare earth metals, as Kyiv got a look at what exactly the president had in mind.

The rare earth proposal presented by US officials would have signed away about half of Ukraine’s wealth in exchange for very little, including no security guarantees, according to a leaked copy of the document. 

The draft deal includes sections on Ukraine’s infrastructure and gas resources – including a far higher cut of Ukraine’s resources than the rare earth elements he began expressing an interest in two weeks ago, as first reported by The Telegraph on Monday.

When asked in a CNN interview Monday about the plan to ship off precious Ukrainian resources such as lithium, which is used for batteries in electric vehicles, Ukrainian parliamentarian Kira Rudik, from the liberal democratic Holos party, appeared disgusted that the idea was even being considered.

“A better idea would be to use the West’s frozen Russian assets, which, by the way, total about $300 billion,” she said, interrupted by explosions heard in the background at her Kyiv home.