President Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Saudi Arabia on Monday, a day before the planned peace talks between senior Ukrainian and US officials in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he, too, would be in Saudi Arabia around the same time, ostensibly to work on a “business deal.”
Zelensky said he would meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday. “After that, my team will stay in Saudi Arabia to work with our American partners. Ukraine is most interested in peace,” he wrote on X.
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The US delegation is reported to be essentially the same group that met earlier in the year with Russian officials for initial peace talks: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz.
Witkoff said he planned to speak to Ukrainian envoys on Thursday about a ceasefire with Russia and a “framework” for a longer agreement.
“We’re now in discussions to coordinate a meeting with the Ukrainians in Riyadh, or even potentially Jeddah,” Witkoff told reporters.
“The idea is to get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire as well,” he said.
The Ukrainian team will be led by Zelensky’s top aide, Andriy Yermak.
The exact scope of the meeting is still unclear, though it may also include the signing of a deal for the US to obtain valuable Ukrainian minerals, which went off track at the end of last month when Zelensky and Trump met in the White House.
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The US has since suspended military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv, although Trump has signaled that Washington might restore aid if Ukraine signs the minerals deal.
Trump said Thursday he planned to visit Saudi Arabia at what is believed to be a time concurrent with the peace talks, suggesting a deal for major investment from the kingdom.
Trump, asked if he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia, confirmed his intention to visit the oil-rich Gulf nation but suggested that business was the main motive.
“I’m going to Saudi Arabia,” Trump told reporters, without confirming a date.
“I said, I’ll go if you pay a trillion dollars, $1 trillion to American companies over a four-year period, of a trillion dollars,” he said.
“They’ve agreed to do that, so I’m going to be going there.”
The trip to Saudi Arabia would be Trump’s first foreign visit in this, his second presidential term.
He said recently that he decided to visit Saudi Arabia rather than Britain because the Arab kingdom promised to buy $450 billion worth of US products, AFP reported. Trump has cultivated close business ties with Saudi Arabia, with the Trump Organization in December announcing a Trump Tower in Jeddah.
In his last term, Trump boasted of shielding Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from consequences over the killing of US-based Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, with the president citing the importance of Saudi purchases of US weapons.
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