USA and Russia begin diplomatic contacts to prepare the summit between Trump and Putin

The heads of the US diplomacy and Russia, Marco Rubio and Serguéi Lavrov, talked on Saturday by phone and agreed to remain in regular contact to prepare the summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, both governments reported.

There is still no set for the summit, but Trump said this week that it could be held in Saudi Arabia and that his goal would be to end the war in Ukraine.

As indicated by the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement, the call was made on the initiative of Washington and in it both ministers «reaffirmed their willingness to collaborate to restore an interstate dialogue based on mutual respect, in line with the tone marked by the presidents »In his conversation on Wednesday.

In addition, Moscow said that «both parties expressed their willingness to cooperate in current international issues, including the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, the situation in Palestine and, in general, in the Middle East, as well as in other regional issues.»

For its part, the US Department of State explained in another statement that, during the call, Rubio reaffirmed Trump’s «commitment» to find a solution to the conflict in Ukraine.

Trump and Putin’s summit can take shape in Saudi Arabia

The announcement of the conversation occurred shortly before Rubio arrived in Jerusalem, as part of a tour that will also take him to Saudi Arabia, where he is expected to meet with Russian officials to start negotiations in order to end the war In Ukraine, according to the CNN on Saturday, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter.

In addition to Rubio, the National Security Advisor of the White House, Mike Waltz, and the envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will participate in those conversations.

According to CNN, the Russian delegation could include high political, intelligence and economic positions, including Kirill Dmitriev, the official who played a key role in the recent exchange of prisoners between the two countries: that of the American professor Marc Fogel, arrested in Russia Since 2021, for the alleged Russian cybercrime Alexander Vinnik.

The conversation between Trump and Putin, after which the American called his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelenski, was the first public contact between US presidents and Russia since February 2022, when Putin spoke with the then president, Joe Biden, before the start of the invasion of Ukraine.

After the call, Trump announced that he had reached an agreement with Putin so that both countries initiate «immediate negotiations» with the aim of ending the war in Ukraine.

Trump’s postulates

In later days, the president broke with the position maintained by the Biden government by stating that Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO is not «practice» and consider «unlikely» that the country recovers the entire territory occupied by Russia Since 2014, including the Crimean Peninsula, which is concessions to Moscow.

In addition, the Trump administration has defended that Europe should not participate in negotiations with Russia and, unlike Biden, has begun to directly discuss with Moscow the terms of a possible agreement without counting Ukraine.

The Russian offensive in Ukraine began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea. Subsequently, in February 2022, the Kremlin launched a large -scale invasion that was strongly condemned by the West.

In response, the United States, together with the European Union and Canada, imposed hard sanctions against the Russian economy and sent large amounts of humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. EFE