Yuri Ushakov, assistant to the russian president, announced that the russian-American negotiations in the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, had concluded. This was reported by the russian bureau of Forbes on February 18.
According to Ushakov, the sides agreed that negotiating teams from russia and the U.S. would establish contact regarding Ukraine.
As TASS reports, the negotiations ended 4.5 hours after they began.
"Not bad, in my opinion. Not bad", - russian media quoted Ushakov as saying.
According to him, "it is still difficult to say that (the positions of russia and the U.S.) are converging, but there was a discussion about it".
"It was a very serious discussion on all the issues we wanted to address. ... We agreed to take each other's interests into account while also working to advance bilateral relations, as both Moscow and Washington are interested in this", - Ushakov added.
Regarding a putin-Trump meeting, Ushakov said that the topic was discussed, and both sides would "work to create conditions for such a meeting". However, he rejected the possibility of the two presidents meeting next week. "That is unlikely", he said when asked about it.
The russian delegation included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, and head of the russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev. The U.S. delegation included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
It is noted that the kremlin officially announced the negotiations with the U.S. on Monday, February 17. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the meeting in Riyadh would focus "primarily on restoring the full spectrum of Russian-American relations", as well as preparing for potential negotiations on the Ukraine settlement and arranging a meeting between the two presidents.
Earlier, Zelensky stated that Kyiv knew nothing about the negotiations in Saudi Arabia and would not recognize them.