Jeddah: High-stakes talks between senior delegations from Ukraine and the United States on how to end Kyiv’s three-year war with Moscow opened in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, hours after Russian air defences shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over Russia.
Two people were killed and 18 were injured, including three children, in the massive drone attack that spanned 10 Russian regions, officials said. No large-scale damage was reported.
In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, journalists briefly entered a room where senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat for talks on ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio smiled for the cameras, while Ukrainian officials sat without expression at a table across from them as the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian or US officials on the drone attack.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was on hand for the talks as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags stood in the background. Officials did not answer any of the shouted questions.
The talks offer an opportunity for Kyiv officials to repair Ukraine’s relationship with Trump’s administration after an unprecedented argument erupted during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s February 28 visit to the White House.
Critically, Ukraine needs to persuade Washington to end the subsequent US suspension of military aid and some intelligence sharing. US officials have said that positive talks in Jeddah could mean it may be only a short suspension.
Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they will propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which would bring safer shipping, as well long-range missile strikes that have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.
The two senior officials said Kyiv is also ready to sign an agreement with the United States on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals — a deal that US President Donald Trump is keen to secure.
On his plane to Jeddah, Rubio said the US delegation would not be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the three-year conflict but rather wanted to hear from Ukraine about what they would be willing to consider.
“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.” Rubio said the rare earths and critical minerals deal could be signed during the meeting but stressed it was not a precondition for the United States to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.
He said it may, in fact, make more sense to take some time to negotiate the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.
The Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it’s ready to cease hostilities on condition that Ukraine drops its bid to join NATO and recognises regions that Moscow occupies as Russian. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory since the war began.
Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for more than a year, though at a high cost in infantry and armour, and are pushing at selected points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region, against Ukraine’s understrength and weary army.
Ukraine has invested heavily in developing its arms industry, especially high-tech drones that have reached deep into Russia.
Most of the Ukrainian drones fired overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, according to a statement by Russia’s Defence Ministry.
Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the biggest single attack on Moscow so far in the war.
The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.
Another person was wounded on a highway in the Lipetsk region, Gov. Igor Artamonov said.
Sobyanin said the roof of a building in Moscow also sustained damage, which he described as “insignificant”.
Footage of the building, published by RIA Novosti, showed a charred spot on the facade of a multi-story residential building near the roof, with bits of the building’s lining stripped off.
Flights were temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
