{"id":240203,"date":"2025-02-16T16:36:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T16:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/europe-scrambles-as-u-s-and-russia-prepare-to-meet-on-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2025-02-16T16:36:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T16:36:19","slug":"europe-scrambles-as-u-s-and-russia-prepare-to-meet-on-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/europe-scrambles-as-u-s-and-russia-prepare-to-meet-on-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe Scrambles as U.S. and Russia Prepare to Meet on Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/16\/multimedia\/16ukraine-talks-flkw\/16ukraine-talks-flkw-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Europe Scrambles as U.S. and Russia Prepare to Meet on Ukraine\" title=\"Europe Scrambles as U.S. and Russia Prepare to Meet on Ukraine\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While American officials prepared on Sunday for the start of talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine, European leaders were moving to formulate a response to President Trump\u2019s rapid push for a settlement that appeared to leave them and Ukrainian officials with no clear role in the process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Russian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, where the talks are to take place this week, met Sunday with the kingdom\u2019s foreign minister. Two senior Trump administration officials \u2014 Mike Waltz, and the Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff \u2014 will fly to Saudi Arabia to join Secretary of State Marco Rubio for the negotiations, Mr. Witkoff said Sunday in an interview with Fox News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The preparations come after a flurry of diplomatic discussions over the last several days that included a conversation between Mr. Rubio and Russia\u2019s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Sunday, Mr. Rubio said in an interview from Jerusalem with CBS News that if an opportunity presented itself for a \u201cbroader conversation that would involve Ukraine and would involve the end of the war, and would involve our allies all over the world, particularly in Europe,\u201d the United States would explore it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He did not say which Russian officials would be in Riyadh this week and noted that he had made plans earlier to be in Saudi Arabia anyway during this trip, his first to the Middle East as secretary of state. \u201cNothing\u2019s been finalized yet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The meeting with Russia, while preliminary, would signal the start of Mr. Trump\u2019s accelerated timetable for a deal and his seeming determination to conduct negotiations with Russia alone, at least for now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Monday, the leaders of France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain the Netherlands and Denmark, and the top officials of the European Union and NATO, will convene in Paris in an emergency meeting on the war in Ukraine and European security, French officials said Sunday. The aim is to coordinate a response to the Trump administration\u2019s opening of talks with Russia without European participation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That follows a meeting Sunday of foreign ministers from the European Union, which as a bloc has provided more military support for Ukraine than the United States has.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is unclear if President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine will be in Saudi Arabia this week. He has said he would travel to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but did not specify when.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But he has made clear he does not want to enter negotiations before determining what security guarantees Western nations are willing to offer to ensure any cease-fire is not violated. As of Saturday, he said he had no such assurances from the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In an interview with NBC aired Sunday he reiterated that he would \u201cnever\u201d accept a peace negotiation settled between Russia and the United States without Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Asked if he feels he has a seat at the table right now, he did not answer directly. He said he counted on one. He said he told Mr. Trump that Putin \u201cis a liar\u201d who \u201cdoesn\u2019t want any peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, if Russian and Ukrainian delegations were to meet, it would be the first direct talks in nearly three years, raising the prospect of an end to the bloodiest war in Europe since World War II.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Moscow, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But Russian state television on Sunday released an interview with Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin\u2019s spokesman, who reasserted Russia\u2019s newfound optimism about negotiating with the United States after years of diplomatic isolation by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe\u2019re now going to be talking about peace, not about war,\u201d Mr. Peskov said. \u201cBased on President Trump\u2019s statements, we\u2019re solving problems through dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Edward Wong contributed reporting from Washington, and <!-- -->Anton Troianovski<!-- --> from Berlin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/16\/world\/europe\/europe-us-russia-ukraine-talks.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While American officials prepared on Sunday for the start of talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine, European leaders were moving to formulate a response to President Trump\u2019s rapid push for a settlement that appeared to leave them and Ukrainian officials with no clear role in the process. The Russian ambassador to Saudi [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/16\/multimedia\/16ukraine-talks-flkw\/16ukraine-talks-flkw-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[896,14314,86565,2485,8026,170339,202,13294,32316,221,1130,128437],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240205,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240203\/revisions\/240205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}