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US and Ukrainian diplomatic delegations began high-stakes talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday that Kyiv hopes can repair its fraught relationship with Washington and restart American weapons delivery and intelligence-sharing.
The Ukrainian team is expected to present US officials with a proposal for a partial ceasefire in which Ukraine and Russia would refrain from long-range drone and missile strikes, attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure, and military activities in the Black Sea.
“The meeting with the US team started in a very constructive manner. We’re working towards a just and lasting peace,” Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leader of Kyiv’s delegation, said on Telegram.
Ukraine has been seeking guarantees of its future security from the US, a pledge that US President Donald Trump and his team have been unwilling to make.
“The security guarantee is important because we never want this aggression to be repeated,” Yermak told reporters at the start of talks. “Now we think it’s necessary to discuss how to start this process.”
The talks, which began at midday in Jeddah, came as both Ukrainian and Russian forces launched fresh attacks on each other’s territory.
On Monday night, authorities in Moscow reported that at least 91 drones had targeted the Russian capital in one of the biggest drone attacks on the city since Russia’s full invasion in 2022.
Ukrainian authorities also reported drone strikes on several regions of the country overnight.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio told reporters that Washington would seek to “understand the Ukrainian position” and gauge the concessions Kyiv would be ready to make.
The US’s top diplomat added on the eve of the talks that Kyiv would need to cede some territory to Russia as part of a peace deal.
“The Russians can’t conquer all of Ukraine, and obviously it’ll be very difficult for Ukraine in any reasonable time period to sort of force the Russians back all the way to where they were in 2014,” Rubio said, referring to Ukraine’s borders before the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea that year.
Mike Waltz, US national security adviser, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, are joining Rubio in the US delegation.
Zelenskyy travelled to Saudi Arabia to meet Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday, but is not taking part in the discussions with the US.
“Ukraine’s position in these talks will be fully constructive,” Zelenskyy said on X.
Ukraine has hurried in the past 10 days to mend its ties with the Trump administration after a disastrous meeting at the White House between Zelenskyy and the US president.
The dispute led Washington to postpone the signing of a minerals deal and pause all military assistance to Ukraine, including the sharing of intelligence that Kyiv has relied on to hit Russian targets beyond the frontline.
Witkoff told Fox News on Monday that intelligence-sharing would be discussed at the talks, but denied that Washington had stopped providing intelligence for defensive purposes.
He also said Zelenskyy had apologised for the White House argument in a letter sent to Trump.
The halt in US military assistance coincided with a new Russian offensive in the Kursk region, which was seized by Ukrainian forces in August.
Ukraine said Russia had launched ballistic missiles and 126 kamikaze drones at several of its regions overnight as part of a near-daily campaign of attack that has lasted several weeks.
The Ukrainian drone attack on Russia killed two people and wounded at least 14 others. Russia’s defence ministry said it had recorded 337 unmanned aerial vehicles across the country, including an intense assault on Moscow.
Images from the capital shared on social media showed several high-rise apartment blocks with fire and dozens of burnt-out vehicles. Officials claimed all the drones were shot down by Russian air defences.
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