WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading an American delegation to Saudi Arabia for direct talks with Russian officials, in the first-stage diplomacy the Trump administration says is aimed at ending Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The delegation is expected to include national security adviser Michael Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff. According to the supplied AP report, the talks were described as fluid and early-stage, with the lineup still subject to change. That caveat is important: the administration is trying to open a channel, but the format and final participants had not yet been locked in.
The trip follows a telephone call between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, after which Trump said the two sides had agreed to have their teams start negotiations immediately. The call marked a major break from the previous U.S. approach, which had treated Moscow as isolated after the February 2022 invasion. The evidence packet frames the Saudi meeting as the first visible result of that shift.
Ukrainian involvement was still uncertain in the report. A Ukrainian delegation was already in Saudi Arabia to prepare for a possible visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while Trump told reporters that Zelenskyy would be involved, without explaining the format. Zelenskyy has said he would not accept talks about Ukraine that exclude his country, and European governments have also pressed for a seat at the table. Those positions make the composition of any negotiation one of the most important unresolved questions.
The report also makes clear that, despite the diplomatic momentum, the sides are still far apart. A top Zelenskyy adviser said there was no plan for immediate direct Ukrainian-Russian contact, while another adviser rejected the idea that Ukraine would join the planned U.S.-Russia meeting in Riyadh. Russian officials and state media, meanwhile, sounded optimistic after Trump’s call with Putin.
Witkoff said the goal was “trust-building,” not a detailed settlement. That framing suggests the Saudi talks are more exploratory than decisive: a test of whether direct engagement can create enough political space for subsequent discussions about territory, security guarantees and the broader shape of a ceasefire.
The evidence does not show a breakthrough. It shows a new phase in the diplomacy, one driven by the White House and centered in Saudi Arabia, with the participants still not fully fixed. Even so, the announcement is significant because it ends the waiting period and puts senior U.S. officials on a direct path toward talks with Moscow over Ukraine.
The Saudi venue also matters because it provides a neutral setting for a conversation that remains politically fragile in Washington, Kyiv and Moscow. The report suggests the administration is trying to move quickly, but the same report also shows how many moving parts remain unresolved. Ukraine wants to be included, Europe wants a role and Russia is signaling that it sees an opening. Early negotiations often fail because the participants are still testing what each side is willing to put on the table. In that sense, the significance of the trip is not that a settlement is imminent, but that the Trump administration has chosen to treat direct engagement with Russia as the next step in its Ukraine policy.
