Secretary of State Marco Rubio Meets With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov In Saudi Arabia

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Rubio and Lavrov met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to start a negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.

The meeting was held behind closed doors, but after it, Rubio told reporters that “Russian delegations had agreed to establish a consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship.”

Rubio added, “We’re going to need to have vibrant diplomatic missions that are able to function normally in order to be able to continue these conduits.”

🇷🇺🇺🇸 Video of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov holding talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Saudi Arabia.

pic.twitter.com/quDDSsjIs0

— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) February 18, 2025

Here’s what CBS News reported:

Senior officials from Russia and the U.S. met in Saudi Arabia Tuesday to begin talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. As CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reports, some felt the Trump administration had granted Vladimir Putin some degree of victory just by agreeing to hold the high-level meeting with his regime as the war he ignited with his full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, grinds on.

That sentiment may be felt most acutely by the leaders of Ukraine, who were not invited to participate in the initial discussion about the fate of their nation.

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Delegations led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met behind closed doors at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh. The meeting marked another significant step in President Trump’s move to reverse three years of U.S. policy focused on isolating Russia over its war on Ukraine, and it is meant to pave the way for a likely meeting between Mr. Trump and Putin.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. and Russian delegations had agreed to establish a “consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship,” and Rubio told reporters that would include a re-staffing of the two nations’ respective embassies.

Bruce said Rubio and Lavrov had agreed to appoint “high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.” Rubio said the respective embassies in Washington and Moscow would need to be re-staffed, as “we’re going to need to have vibrant diplomatic missions that are able to function normally in order to be able to continue these conduits.”

Neither Bruce’s statement nor a full read-out on the meeting provided by the State Department said anything about involving Ukraine or its European neighbors in the negotiations. The State Department said only that Mr. Trump was, “the only leader in the world who can get Ukraine and Russia to agree to” a ceasefire.

WATCH: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Takes Questions About Russia and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia – 2/18/25 pic.twitter.com/ll47qQT6sH

— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) February 18, 2025

Per AP:

Russia and the U.S. agreed Tuesday to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, the two countries’ top diplomats said after talks that reflected an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump.

In an interview with The Associated Press after the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.

He stressed, however, that the talks — which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials — marked the beginning of a conversation, and more work needs to be done.

Lavrov echoed Rubio’s remarks and told reporters that “the conversation was very useful.”

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“We not only listened, but also heard each other,” he said.

Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and special Mideast envoy Steven Witkoff joined Rubio at the table, along with Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov.