Ukraine will present the United States on Tuesday with a plan for a partial ceasefire with Russia, hoping to restore support from its key benefactor, which under President Donald Trump has demanded concessions to end the three-year war.
The talks in Saudi Arabia come as Russia has ramped up attacks and with Ukraine hitting back with a deadly overnight attack on Moscow and across the country involving more than 330 drones, according to Russian officials.
The meeting due later Tuesday between Ukrainian and US officials in the Saudi port city of Jeddah will be the most senior since a disastrous White House visit last month when Trump berated Kyiv’s President Volodymyr Zelensky for purported ingratitude.
Since Trump’s dressing down of Zelensky, Washington has suspended military aid to Ukraine as well as intelligence sharing and access to satellite imagery in a bid to force it to the negotiating table.
Zelensky, who wrote a repentant letter to Trump, was in Jeddah on Monday to meet Saudi rulers but left the talks to three top aides.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will be joined in Jeddah by Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz, said the aid suspension was “something I hope we can resolve” in the talks.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a good meeting and good news to report,” Rubio said.
Rubio said that the United States had not cut off intelligence for defensive operations.
Zelensky left the White House without signing an agreement demanded by Trump that would give the United States access to much of Ukraine’s mineral wealth as compensation for past weapons supplies.
Zelensky has said he is still willing to sign, although Rubio said it would not be the focus of Tuesday’s meeting.
Russia has since escalated its strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure and retaken villages in its Kursk region that Ukraine had captured in a bid for bargaining leverage.
On the eve of the Saudi talks, Ukraine carried out what Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin described as a “massive” attack with 337 drones shot down across the country, including 91 around the Russian capital.
