The February 2025 United StatesâÂÂRussia meeting in Saudi Arabia (also known as the 2025 Saudi Arabia meeting) was a meeting at the ministerial level between the United States and Russia. It was held on 18 February 2025, and involved three American delegates led by US secretary of state Marco Rubio and two Russian delegates led by foreign minister Sergey Lavrov at in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to discuss improving RussiaâÂÂUnited States relations and plans to end the war in Ukraine. Despite the meeting being primarily about Ukraine, no Ukrainian or European delegations were invited to the meeting. United States President Donald Trump has dismissed Ukrainian concerns that Ukraine was not invited to the meeting, and also apparently implied Ukraine was to blame for starting the war. The Riyadh meeting was the most extensive diplomatic meeting between the United States and Russia since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The meeting came less than a week after Donald Trump's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 12 February 2025 on a wide range of topics in which Trump and Putin agreed to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. The day before the meeting, several European leaders met in Paris to discuss the war in Ukraine. At the time of the meeting, Russia forces had been making slow gains in southeastern Ukraine, however Ukrainian troops still occupied parts of Russia around the town of Sudzha. Trump had previously promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, however he later rolled back on this promise, saying his administration's new goal is to end the war within 100 days of taking office. The meeting was also held only two days after the conclusion of the 2025 Munich Security Conference, in which United States Vice President JD Vance made several controversial remarks on Europe, criticising German mainstream political parties' firewall against far-right parties in Germany and downplaying the threat of Russia to Europe.
On 16 February 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Ukraine and Europe would be part of any future "real negotiations" to end the war. President Trump said on the same day that the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy "will be involved" in peace negotiations.
The call and summit represented a major shift in United States foreign policy towards Russia, as Trump criticised Ukrainian peace negotiation in the war, saying he was "very disappointed [in Ukraine]" and that Ukraine has "been there for three years. [Ukraine] should have ended it three years [ago] â you should have never started it. You could have made a deal". Trump later said that Russia did invade, but that the United States shouldn't have let Russia attack. The meeting was held in Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov led the American and Russian delegations, respectively. On the American side, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, and Mike Waltz represented the United States at the meeting while Sergey Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov represented Russia. The day before, several European officials met in Paris to discuss the war in Ukraine and the recent American reversal in foreign policy, including proposing to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. However, Sergey Lavrov rejected any NATO peacekeeping force in Ukraine during the meeting, saying "the expansion of NATO, the absorption of Ukraine by the North Atlantic alliance, is a direct threat to the interests of the Russian Federation." Russia and the United States also agreed to restore staffing at each other's embassies.
The meeting laid the groundwork for a future meeting between Putin and Trump, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying the meeting could take place before the end of February, though this did not end up happening. Marco Rubio said a potential meeting between Trump and Putin would "largely depend on whether we can make progress on ending the war in Ukraine."
On 2 March 2025, Starmer hosted a summit in London with several international leaders to create a "coalition of the willing" to support Ukraine in negotiations and to put Ukraine in a stronger position for negotiations. The London summit also hoped to craft a peace deal for Ukraine and to present it to the United States, with Starmer stating that the US was "not an unreliable ally" despite recent hostilities between the US government and Ukraine.
On 11 March, representatives of the US and Ukraine met in Jeddah to discuss peace negotiations, with the US restoring aid and intelligence sharing it had previously cut off to Ukraine.
On 23 and 24 March, representatives of the US met with representatives of Ukraine and Russia separately to negotiate peace in Ukraine through shuttle diplomacy. The talks with Ukraine on the 23rd failed to secure a 30-day ceasefire as Trump had been hoping, however, Putin did agree to stop Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. The talks with Russia on the 24th attempted to resume a 2022 grain deal intended to allow Ukraine to continue exporting grain that had been previously pulled out of by Russia in 2023, with both sides agreeing separately to stop the use of force in the Black Sea after certain measures were met. Neither talk mentioned territorial gains or losses after the resolution of the war. Due to the vastly differing visions for peace between Ukraine and Russia, not much was achieved at the summits, although Witkoff did say he expected "some real progress".
On 7 April, leaders of several European nations met in Brussels, stating that although Putin has claimed that Russia wants peace, he has not shown any inclination to negotiate. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius stated that "peace in Ukraine appears to be out of reach in the immediate future" due to Russia's ongoing aggression. US General Keith Kellogg had said that Ukraine could be partitioned in a peace deal and that in order to end the war, Ukraine would have to concede to Russian territorial demands, leading to significant tension during the meeting. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was notably not present at the meeting, choosing instead to attend virtually.
Also on 7 April, Witkoff met with Putin in St. Petersburg, with the talks having been described as "productive" by Russian CEO and special envoy Kirill Dmitriev. The meeting focused on peace in Ukraine, with Peskov saying that the "process of normalising relations is ongoing".