When Ukrainian and American officials sit on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia for their first high -level meeting since an oval office shouts a game among their presidents last month, the goal will be to find a way to stop the bloodiest European war of generations.
But the United States, Ukraine and Russia seem to have very different ideas on how the fire should be.
Ukraine proposed an immediate cessation of air and maritime attacks, but wishes to guarantee safety before its infantry laid its arms. The United States are pressing a ceased and complete fire. And Russia, who will not be at the interviews, has reported that he wants his own concessions before stopping the war that has begun.
If the Ukrainian proposal to stop the air and sea strikes, this would entail the first negotiated reduction of fighting in three years of war, but the Trump administration has clarified that it is looking for more. Ukraine offered the unconditional truce on long -range strikes as a measure of construction of trust while the talks continue on a ceased the most complete fire.
The secretary of state Marco Rubio, broken to the meetings in the seaside city of Jeddah, said on Monday that Ukraine should have made concessions on earth that Russia has taken since 2014 as part of any peace agreement.
“The most important thing with which we have to leave here is a strong sense that Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things, such as the Russians will have to do difficult things, to put an end to this conflict or in the end put it in some way in some way form or form,” said Journalists.
These will be the first high -level and person -to -person talks for the United States and Ukraine from a meeting of the White House on February 28th between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky from Ukraine have woke up in a discussion and insults. “You talked enough,” Trump said to Mr. Zelensky at some point. “You won’t win.”
Since then, Zelensky has tried to smooth out the relationships with Mr. Trump, defining their controversial “deplorable” encounter and Ukrainian officials have been careful to frame their proposal to cease fire. During the weekend, French and British officials trained the Ukrainian delegation on how to talk to the Americans, said a Ukrainian official with the delegation. The delegation should also meet the American national security councilor, Michael Waltz.
Ukraine favors a truce at sea and in the air, said that the official, who has not been authorized to speak publicly about the delegation plans, but could represent the idea provisionally. “We don’t know if the Russians are ready for a few steps for peace,” said the official. The official said that Ukrainians would ask if the Americans, who spoke separately with the Russians, had a vision of Moscow’s position on the Ukrainian proposal.
Zelensky proposed the partial ceased on fire last week, with the support of President Emmanuel Macron in France. Russia did not respond directly. The Ukrainian president also asked for an exchange of prisoners of war, a traditional measure of building confidence in peace talks.
The proposals that Ukraine is leading to Jeddah are to date. In return, he is looking for an immediate action from the United States: a recovery of military aid and sharing of the intelligence suspended by Mr. Trump after the debacle of the oval office.
The cutting of intelligence has already altered the soldiers in combat, in particular in the Kursk Russia region, where Russian soldiers, helped by North Korea fighters, quickly advanced, according to Ukrainian commanders on the field.
The image appears in some way in recent times of Eastern Ukraine, where a slow inversion for the Russians on the battlefield has become more acute. Ukrainian troops blocked a Russian offensive and won small ground stains. Since the beginning of the month, Russia has only captured five square miles of Ukrainian territory.
Rubio refused to outline a potential agreement, but clarified that concessions will be critical. He said it would be important to learn what Russia is willing to grant. “We don’t know how far they are really far,” he said.
“I think both sides must understand that there is no military solution to this situation,” said Rubio. “The Russians cannot conquer all Ukraine, and obviously it will be very difficult for Ukraine in any period of reasonable time to force the Russians to where they were in 2014.”
It is not clear whether the offer of an antenna and maritime truce, perhaps accompanied by an agreement to share the revenues of the Ukraine mining with the United States, would be enough for Mr. Trump to resume sharing of intelligence and lifting his stop on shipments of arms.
Trump has pushed the teams to war to stop fighting as soon as possible, without first negotiation of terms that could include mechanisms to safeguard peace. At the meeting of the oval office, he claimed that a ceased the fire could be achieved more quickly than a peace agreement and that the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, would have kept his word.
Russia violated two previous ceased ceasers, reached in 2014 and 2015, and denied the intention to invade a few days before invading in 2022.
In an interview with Fox News’s “Futures of Sunday morning, Mr. Trump once again thought that Mr. Zelensky, on which he accumulated vitriol, was not grateful for American military aid. When the Biden administration was in power, he said, the Ukrainian leader” took candies from a child “.
Trump also claimed to have seen “a little weakness” with Russia that would facilitate interviews. “You know, it takes two,” he said.
Russia publicly asked that the conditions are imposed before a ceased the fire has effect and Mr. Putin reported that he wants to secure a series of concessions from Ukraine and the West.
Analysts believe that in addition to trying to maintain the territory that Russia has caught so far and claiming additional land, Putin will ask for a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO, a retreat from the western alliance from central and eastern Europe and will limit the size and fire power of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“We must choose for ourselves a version of peace that would adapt and that would guarantee calm for our country in long -term historical perspective,” said Putin on Thursday.
Russia is also pushing for Ukraine to keep presidential elections, arguing that the domain of Mr. Zelensky is illegitimate. The Ukrainian elections scheduled for the spring of 2024 were suspended because of the war.
For Ukraine, the talks represent the discouraging challenge to adapt to an ally that is now adopting positions of its enemy. Both Russia and the Trump administration have interrogated the legitimacy of Mr. Zelensky and accused Ukraine of having started the war.
“I find more difficult to face Ukraine and do not have cards,” Trump said last week.
The United States also have not offered any support for a role for European peace maintenance lines in Ukraine under a ceased, but while Ukrainian and American officials meet Tuesday in Jeddah, the best military officials will be expected to meet in Paris to discuss this strength. To the question on how many troops could be necessary, the French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, told La Tribune du Dimanche that “everything depends on their mission and positioning”.
The largest objectives of Ukraine in talks with the United States must slow down, as far as possible, the repercussions on his war effort from the American geopolitical pivot in Russia under Mr. Trump. This could buy time for European states to increase aid, analysts and former Ukrainian officials.
“It is the alignment between Putin and Trump who is the problem,” said Orgese Lutsevych, Ukrainian analyst at the Research Institute house based in London. “There is nothing that Zelensky can do. Ukraine is ready to compromise but not capitulate. I don’t see an Ukraine leader who wants to be friendly with Trump and Putin. ”
It is likely that Ukraine did not bow on it insisting on the fact that there is a mechanism of application for any ceased the fire, said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, former Ukrainian defense minister. Russia has greater potential to reconstruct its army for any pause in the fighting, he said.
“If we have nothing, and Russia is pumping their strength, in a year they will be ready to hit again,” said Zagorodnyuk in a telephone interview.
Marc Santora Reports contributed by Kiev, Ukraine, Anton Troianovski from Berlin, e Aurelien Breeden from Paris.