The first-ever formal face-to-face talks between top Kremlin officials and US President Donald Trump’s negotiating team in Saudi Arabia ended in a diplomatic defeat for Washington as Russia doubled down on demands that amounted to a call for Ukrainian capitulation to end its three-year-old full-scale invasion while flatly rejecting mild concessions the US asked for.
During the talks, US delegation leader Secretary of State Marc Rubio proposed a moratorium on civilian energy grid strikes by both Russia and Ukraine.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in comments following the meetings said the US suggestion was unnecessary as Russia’s armed forces hit only Ukrainian military targets and have never attacked Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
Less than 12 hours after the talks had ended, Russia launched almost 150 kamikaze drones aimed at Ukraine’s energy grid, of which Ukraine’s Air Force said 143 were brought down by its air defenses and electronic warfare jamming.
Ukrainian news media reported some drones penetrated air defenses striking power grid infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, leaving at least 160,000 people without electricity and water. News reports said a hospital and a daycare center were hit but no injuries were reported.
Trump called a quick end to fighting in Ukraine a top priority for his administration before and after his re-election as US President. The failure of the US to engage with the Kremlin in the past, combined with Trump’s allegedly unique negotiating skills, would convince both Russia and Ukraine to make concessions for the sake of peace, Rubio said in later comments.
Russia May Tap $300B in Frozen Assets to Rebuild Ukraine – With a Catch
But Lavrov, speaking to the Ria Novosti Russian state media outlet on Thursday, signaled little willingness from the Kremlin even to consider terms US officials have proposed. A critical feature of the Trump administration’s plan for a ceasefire – an international peacekeeping force, drawn mostly from NATO members and deployed to Ukraine at European expense – is absolutely unacceptable to Russia, Lavrov said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova signaled a hardening of a longstanding Kremlin position that Ukraine must never become a NATO member during a Wednesday press conference, telling reporters that Russia would not be satisfied with a peace treaty simply banning Ukraine from ever joining the Atlantic alliance.
If America wants Russia to cease hostilities in Ukraine, then NATO must formally cancel its Bucharest 2008 declaration that said Ukraine could be considered for membership, once its military improved its operations and equipment to NATO standards, Zakharova said. There was no immediate public response to the Kremlin demand from the alliance’s Brussels HQ.
On Tuesday the Russian representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, expanded Russian claims to Ukrainian territory during a speech in New York. He demanded Kyiv “must cede” those parts of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Kherson regions not yet occupied by Russia, become a “totally demilitarized” state and agree not just to stay out of NATO, but never to enter a defensive alliance with any country.
US officials in the run-up to the Riyadh talks had suggested future Ukrainian security might be maintained by peacekeepers plus arms transfers and training that would make the Ukrainian army powerful enough to deter a repeat Russian invasion supported by security guarantees from allied states, other than the US.
Russia dispatched a “blue ribbon” delegation to Saudi Arabia led by Lavrov alongside President Vladimir Putin’s senior international affairs advisor, Yuri Ushakov, and national sovereign wealth fund manager Kirill Dmitriev.
Lavrov has been Russia’s senior diplomat and Putin’s top international advisor for more than 30 years – one of Putin’s longest-serving associates. Ushakov and Dmitriev are the Kremlin’s senior advisors for diplomatic protocol and foreign energy negotiations respectively.
Images from Wednesday’s Riyadh meeting showed Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev, an oligarch responsible for helping Trump out of a debt crunch by purchasing a Trump Palm Beach property valued at $40 million for $95 million in 2008, was a member of the Kremlin delegation and present at the talks.
The three Americans sent by the White House were, compared to their Russian counterparts, untested and unseasoned in top-level diplomatic practice.
The leader of the US delegation, Secretary of State Marc Rubio became America’s senior diplomat in late January 2025, and before that had never represented the US President in any capacity. Trump’s National Security advisor, Mike Waltz, and his designated Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, similarly, have limited experience in international negotiations and none in top-level state-to-state talks.
Kyiv Post reported on this potentially yawning experience gap before the Riyadh talks.
The Russian Resumés:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
The 73-year-old career diplomat was born in Moscow and graduated from the most elite university of the Soviet Union, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in 1972. He speaks English fluently and reportedly has a good command of Sinhala, Dhivehi and French.
He served in various UN posts and at Foreign Ministry headquarters from 1981 to 1994 and then became the Russian Federation ambassador to the UN. He was named by Putin as Minister of Foreign Affairs in March 2004 – making him one of the most experienced foreign ministers in the world. Lavrov oversaw Kremlin foreign policy during Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014, intervention in Syria in 2015, and Ukraine in 2022.
Lavrov’s most significant career successes are probably preventing Western intervention in Georgia and Ukraine and keeping China neutral in Russia’s wars against Ukraine. Russian diplomatic defeats during his tenure include the loss of Kremlin influence over Georgia and Ukraine in the early 2000s, the sidelining of NATO-led recognition of Kosovo’s independence and its expansion eastward. He comes to the Saudi Arabia talks with close to 30 years of experience in top-level diplomacy.
Putin’s Aide for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov
The 77-year-old was born in Moscow and also graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in 1972. He speaks English at a diplomatic level and reportedly understands Danish.
He served in various diplomatic posts in Western Europe up to 1998 when he was appointed Russia’s ambassador to the US, in which capacity he served ten years. After four years in Kremlin assignments, Putin appointed Ushakov as chief aide for international affairs. A key role that has acted as Putin’s institutional memory during summit talks. Ushakov has held that job since 2012. He comes to the Saudi Arabia talks with 22 years of experience in top-level diplomacy.
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund chief Kirill Dmitriev
Dmitriev, 49, is a native of Kyiv. He studied at Harvard (MBA, Business) and Stanford (BA, Economics) in the 1990s, the latter degree with honors. He speaks English not only fluently but to a professional standard in academic and financial areas. He worked at the trading company Goldman Sachs and McKinsey before returning to Moscow in 2000.
In 2011 Putin recruited Dmitriev to run Russia’s sovereign wealth fund with the mandate to diversify Russian national earnings beyond petroleum products. Russian state capital has been used in institutional investments worldwide, but especially in developed nations and in oil-producing countries in the Middle East. According to the Reuters news agency, he led Kremlin links with Trump’s team when Trump was first elected president in 2016 and has met several times with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He comes to the Saudi Arabia talks with 14 years of top-level diplomatic experience.
The US Team
US Secretary of State Marc Rubio
Rubio, 53, is the son of Cuban immigrants and the only senior member of the US delegation speaking a foreign language fluently (Spanish). He is a graduate of regional universities in Florida and first worked as a lawyer. In 2000 he was elected to the Florida legislature and in 2010 was elected to the US Senate. He was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and, during that tenure, advocated US opposition to authoritarian regimes and particularly the normalization of US relations with Cuba.
During a failed 2016 Presidential bid he was an outspoken Trump critic, at one point calling Trump “the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency.” He has since reversed that position and as Secretary of State has stuck closely to Trump’s rhetoric. In early February he said a Trump suggestion to evict 2.2 million Palestinians from Gaza so that their former homes might be developed as boutique real estate made excellent sense, calling the idea “Make Gaza Beautiful Again.”
In a Monday opinion piece, Politico said that Rubio’s subordination of long-held principles in the current Trump administration has undermined his influence with the White House, leading the article with: “It is becoming increasingly clear that Marco Rubio is Secretary of State in name only... Democrats, who backed Rubio for secretary of State hoping he would be a moderating force in the administration, say they increasingly worry Rubio does not have the president’s ear and almost no sway over (world’s richest man and close Trump associate Elon) Musk.”
Rubio has served in his senior US executive branch foreign policy position for less than a month.
US National Security Council Advisor Mike Waltz
Waltz, 51, like Rubio, also is from Florida. He was educated at the Virginia Military Institute and served in the Army for 26 years, primarily in the National Guard. When not on duty as a guardsman he worked as an advisor to the US Defense Secretary. His main research specialization areas were Southeast Asia and narcotics trafficking, in which capacity he from time to time attended Defense Department meetings with international representatives.
In 2018 he was elected to Congress as a Florida representative and served three consecutive terms, including on the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees. In debate, he advocated strong US opposition to China, US military intervention in Mexico to deter narcotics smuggling, and opposed substantial US assistance to Ukraine. A book he wrote about his military experience details negotiations as an on-the-ground “Green Beret” working with Afghan tribesmen. Before the Riyadh meetings, he had never represented the US at top-level talks.
White House Senior Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff
The third member of the US delegation, real estate billionaire Steve Witkoff, is a longtime Trump associate, campaign contributor, and golfing partner. He helped broker a shaky ceasefire in Gaza with leaders of Hamas and Israel in talks brokered in Qatar.
In mid-February Witkoff went to Moscow to help facilitate a prisoner swap trading Russian cybercrime kingpin Alexander Vinnik for US school teacher Marc Fogel. Vinnik had been under arrest and was facing possible decades of prison time for major fraud charges. Fogel was serving a 14-year Russian prison sentence on marijuana possession charges.
Trump claimed the exchange as a diplomatic victory for the US and praised Witkoff for skilled negotiations. Before the Gaza talks and the Vinnik-Fogel prisoner trade, Witkoff had never represented the US government at top-level international talks.
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