State department correspondent
EPAWashington expects “substantial progress” to be made during talks with Ukraine this week, according to a senior US diplomat.
Intelligence sharing will be discussed and the US hopes to sign a deal on critical minerals at the talks in Saudi Arabia, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday.
Witkoff, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz are due to arrive in Jeddah for Tuesday’s talks with their Ukrainian counterparts.
“We’re going over there with an expectation that we’re going to make substantial progress,” Witkoff told Fox News. On whether a minerals deal was imminent, he said “all the signs are very, very positive”.
US President Donald Trump has stepped up pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to accept his demands for a quick ceasefire with Moscow – but without any immediate pledge of a US security guarantee.
Ten days ago the two publicly clashed at the White House, with Trump claiming Zelensky was not ready to end the fighting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Witkoff said that among the issues to be discussed in Saudi Arabia were security protocols for the Ukrainians and territorial issues.
He said the US administration had never shut off intelligence sharing for anything defensive that Ukraine needed, while earlier on Monday Trump told Fox News that he had “just about” lifted the intelligence sharing pause on Ukraine.
A senior US state department official said that the Trump administration believes Ukraine’s leadership is “ready to move forward” with the US’s demand for a ceasefire process with Russia.
“The fact that they’re coming here at senior levels is a good indication to us that they want to sit down and they’re ready to move forward,” said the state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the talks with Ukraine in Jeddah.
While Zelensky has come to the Gulf kingdom to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he is not expected to play any formal role in the talks with the Americans.
The Ukrainian team will be represented by Zelensky’s head of office Andriy Yermak, the country’s national security adviser as well as foreign and defence ministers.
Zelensky wrote on social media on Monday that Ukraine “has been seeking peace since the very first second of the war, and we have always said that the only reason that the war is continuing is because of Russia”.
A short while later, during a daily briefing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it was important to determine whether Ukraine really wanted peace or not. Zelensky has on numerous occasions been accused by US officials of not wanting peace.
The Ukrainian leader has been under strong US pressure to make concessions ahead of any peace talks, while he has been pushing for firm security guarantees for Kyiv, stressing that Putin violated previous ceasefire deals.
On Friday, Trump issued a rare threat of further sanctions against Moscow in a push for a deal. Russia is already heavily sanctioned by the US over the war.
Trump said he was contemplating the move because “Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now”.
Soon after the White House row, Zelensky expressed regret about the incident and tried to repair relations with the US – the country’s biggest military supplier.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, later said that Trump had received a letter from Zelensky that included an “apology” and “sense of gratitude”.
Witkoff said that in Saudi Arabia the US team wanted to discuss a “framework” for peace to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
A major minerals deal – derailed because of the row – is also reported to be back on the agenda in Saudi Arabia.
Ukraine has offered to grant the US access to its rare earth mineral reserves in exchange for US security guarantees.
Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko said he believed Zelensky needed to secure the US-Ukraine relationship “at any cost” during his trip to Saudi Arabia, while making clear “what our red lines are”.
“Otherwise, if there is a deal outside of these terms, then we will just say no, that’s all. Because it’s our army fighting,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The clash at the White House also resulted in the US pausing all military aid to Ukraine and stopping sharing intelligence.
But when asked on Sunday whether he would consider lifting the intelligence pause, Trump answered: “Well, we just about have. I mean, we really just about have and we want to do anything we can to get Ukraine to be serious about getting something done.” He provided no further details.
On 18 February – before the US-Ukraine row in Washington – Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia. It was a follow-up to Trump’s controversial phone conversation with Putin.
The comments come as the Ukrainian military said that it shot down 130 Russian drones overnight.
Over the weekend, a wave of Russian drone strikes killed at least 25 people – mainly in the eastern Donetsk town of Dobropillya.
Elsewhere, Russian forces are reportedly trying to encircle thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region after recapturing three settlements on Sunday.
It comes seven months after a cross-border assault that Kyiv launched in part to gain a bargaining chip in possible peace negotiations.
Reports from Russian bloggers say Moscow special forces had crept for miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces.
Also on Monday, the Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said it will purchase 4.5 million Ukrainian-made drones in 2025, at a cost of more than £2bn.
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