World
Senior officials from Ukraine and the U.S. opened talks Tuesday focused on ending Moscow’s three-year war against Kyiv, hours after Russia shot down over 300 Ukrainian drones.
Ukraine says plan for partial truce would help protect civilians, Black Sea shippingThe Associated Press
· Posted: Mar 11, 2025 5:38 AM EDT | Last Updated: 39 minutes ago
U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hold a meeting with Ukrainian officials in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia on Tuesday. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)Senior officials from Ukraine and the United States opened talks Tuesday focused on ending Moscow’s three-year war against Kyiv, hours after Russia shot down over 300 Ukrainian drones. It was Ukraine’s biggest attack since the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
The talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah come after U.S. President Donald Trump paused military aid to Ukraine last week, along with some intelligence sharing, in an attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in negotiations to end the war against Russia.
Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel later this week to Moscow, where he could meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment publicly. The person cautioned that scheduling could change.
Upbeat mood heading into meetingsJournalists were briefly allowed in a room where a senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who smiled at the cameras and when asked about his expectations for the meeting, gave a thumbs-up and replied, “Good.”
Across the table, Ukrainian officials, including the country’s top diplomat and defence chief, showed no facial expressions as the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel. However, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak, acting as Zelenskyy’s representative at the talks, told reporters that the most important thing was “how to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Monday, ahead of talks between U.S. and Ukrainian delegations. (Saudi Press Agency/Reuters)Yermak said security guarantees were important to prevent Russia from invading again in the future.
It was the first meeting between the two sides since the Oval Office blow-up between Trump and Zelenskyy last month.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was also on hand as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags could be seen in the background. Officials did not answer any of the journalists’ shouted questions.
The delegations met for about three hours in the morning before taking a break, and officials said the talks continued in the afternoon. As he emerged for the break, U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz told reporters: “We’re getting there.”
Airstrikes on both Russia and UkraineThere was no immediate comment from Ukrainian or U.S. officials on the massive attack in which 343 drones targeted 10 Russian regions, leaving three people dead and 18 wounded, including three children, officials said.
Meanwhile, Russia launched 126 drones and a ballistic missile at Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said, as part of Moscow’s relentless pounding of civilian areas during the war.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the U.S. will inform Russia about the results of the Jeddah talks, which he described as “normal practice.”
Chance to mend U.S.-Ukraine relationsThe meeting in Jeddah offered an opportunity for Kyiv officials to repair Ukraine’s relationship with the Trump administration after an unprecedented argument erupted during Zelenskyy’s Feb. 28 visit to the White House.
Critically, Ukraine needs to persuade Washington to end the U.S. suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing after the blowout. U.S. officials have said that positive talks in Jeddah could mean that the pause is short.
WATCH | Cutting through the chaos of the disastrous Trump-Zelenskyy meeting on Feb. 28:
What Zelenskyy wanted from Trump before the shouting started
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s key message to the U.S. was all but drowned out when an Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump devolved into a public shouting match. CBC’s Ellen Mauro cuts through the chaos of that day to reveal what Ukraine was really after and how a history of diplomatic disappointment has left the country desperate for U.S. security guarantees.
Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they will propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which would bring safer shipping, as well as long-range missile strikes that have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.
The two senior officials said Kyiv is also ready to sign an agreement with the U.S. on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals — a deal that Trump is keen to secure.
While travelling to Jeddah, Rubio said the U.S. delegation would not be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the conflict but rather wanted to hear from Ukraine about what it would be willing to consider.
“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”
Rubio said the rare earths and critical minerals deal could be signed during the meeting, but he stressed it was not a precondition for the U.S. to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.
He said it may make more sense to take some time to negotiate the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.
Kremlin sticking to its conditions for peaceThe Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it’s ready to cease hostilities on condition that Ukraine drops its bid to join NATO and recognizes regions that Moscow occupies as Russian. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.
Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for more than a year, though at a high cost in infantry and armour, and are pushing at selected points along the 1,000-kilometre front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, against Ukraine’s weary army.
Ukraine has invested heavily in developing its arms industry, especially high-tech drones that have reached deep into Russia.
From the left, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerovto, hold a meeting with U.S. officials, in Jeddah on Tuesday. (Saul Loeb/The Associated Press)Most of the Ukrainian drones fired overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, according to a statement by Russia’s defence ministry.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the biggest single attack on Moscow so far in the war.
WATCH | EU proposes aid plan for Ukraine after Trump’s suspension of military aid to Kyiv:
EU proposes trillion-dollar plan to aid Ukraine and re-arm Europe
The European Union is considering a more than $1-trillion aid plan for Ukraine and ramping up defence spending after U.S. President Donald Trump’s suspension of military aid to Kyiv fuelled concerns the EU can no longer rely on U.S. protection from Russian aggression.
The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.
Flights were temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
With files from Reuters
