Ukraine War Enters Endgame with US-Russia Meet in Riyadh
Marco Rubio with Sergey Lavrov in Riyadh Image credit Saudi Arabia MFA
US Braces Up with Sanction Relief for Russia after Riyadh Talk
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 18: The US and Russia have taken a major step to end the three-year Ukraine War. The US team lead by Secretary of the State Marco Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh on Tuesday.
Reports said that the US and Russia discussed roadmap to end the Ukraine War. As a first step, Russia and the US agreed to establish diplomatic contacts. Also, the two nations are learnt to have discussed a draft to lift sanctions on Russia, including relief on the price cap of the Russian oil sold in the international market.
Foreign policy analysts have argued that the Us and Russia also discussed scope for cooperation in energy partnership. This aligns with US President Donald Trump’s slogan of “Drill, Baby, Drill” to “Make America Great Again”.
“One meeting is not enough to resolve the Ukraine conflict,” Rubio said after his meeting with the Russian foreign minister. He said that the Riyadh meeting was a step forward after the phone discussion between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The US team also consisted of the national security advisor Mike Waltz and the Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Saudi Arabia acted as a host to the US-Russia talk. Incidentally, Saudi Arabia was the pivot of the Abraham Accords of Trump in his first term in the office as the President of the US.
Lavrov and Rubio agreed to establish a consultation mechanism. High-level teams will soon hold consultations with Ukraine.
“It was positive, upbeat, constructive. Everybody there to get to the right outcome. Solution-based. We discussed it afterwards. We couldn’t have imagined a better result,” said Witkoff after the Riyadh meeting.
Waltz spoke of “the practical reality that there is going to be some discussion of territory, and there’s going to be discussion of security guarantees. Those are just fundamental basis that will undergird and underlie any type of discussion.”
The statement of Waltz was in line with speculations and fear in Europe that the US will press Ukraine to agree to part with territories captured by Russia. “When you talk about an enduring and sustainable end of the conflict, it means one that’s acceptable to everyone involved in it, and that obviously includes Ukraine, but also our partners in Europe, and, of course, the Russian side as well,” said Rubio after the meeting.
The Secretary of the State admitted that sanction relief for Russia is in the offing. “In order to bring an end to any conflict, there has to be concessions made by all sides. We’re not going to predetermine what those are… And there are other parties that have sanctions, the European Union is going to have to be at the table at some point, because they have sanctions as well that have been imposed,” said Rubio.
He also spoke of his assessments that “Russia is willing to begin to engage in a serious process to determine how, and how quickly, and through what mechanism, can an end be brought to this war”.
“Whether we can ultimately reach that outcome will obviously depend on every side in this conflict’s willingness to agree to certain things, said Rubio.
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