US will ‘have contact today’ with Russia after Ukraine peace talks

The US will “have contact” with Russia on Wednesday after holding talks with Ukraine over a possible peace, the country’s secretary of state has said.

Marco Rubio said Washington will put the proposals to Moscow directly, adding that “the ball is truly in their court” and rejection of the plan would “make their intentions clear”.

Kyiv says it is ready to accept plans for a 30-day immediate ceasefire after US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia which were hailed by many as a breakthrough following Donald Trump’s Oval Office spat with Volodymyr Zelensky.

Speaking to reporters in Ireland ahead of flying back to the US on Wednesday, Mr Rubio said: “That’s what we want to know, whether they’re prepared to do it unconditionally. We’ll have contact with them today.

“There’s already been contacts at different levels with counterparts, different members of the administration, and that’ll continue… We’re going to bring it to them directly.

“We’re going to say that Ukraine is prepared to stop all battlefield activity and begin the immediate process of negotiating an enduring end of the war, and we’ll see what their response is.”

He added: “If their response is yes, then we know we’ve made real progress and there’s a real chance of peace.

“If their response is no, it would be highly unfortunate and it would make their intentions clear.

“They’re probably processing the news, the same as the rest of the world is so we hope to have a positive answer from them, the ball is truly in their court.”

Ukrainian president Mr Zelensky said Tuesday’s talks in Jeddah had been “very positive” and covered “all the important, sensitive topics” as he briefed journalists in Kyiv.

“I’d like to thank the American side, the Ukrainian team, for this to happen. This multi-hour meeting, it was a rather detailed one,” he said.

“It is very important for us to be heard so that everyone has the right to express, to share some very important priority matters, and I think that yesterday we had a… very positive meeting.”

In a statement after the meeting, the US also said it would lift its suspension of intelligence sharing and security assistance to Ukraine.

Questions remain over whether the US will back proposals, in which the UK is playing a leading part, to deploy peacekeepers from the continent to protect Kyiv as part of a future peace deal.

Asked whether Washington supported the move, Mr Rubio said:  “We’ll see. I mean, there’s different ways to construct a deterrent on the ground that prevents another war from starting in the future.

“We’re not going to go in with any sort of preconceived notion.

“The bottom line is it needs to be something that makes Ukraine feel as if they can deter and prevent a future invasion.

“How that looks and how that’s put together, that’s what we’re going to be talking about if we can get to that stage.”

But he urged Moscow to “consider ending all hostilities” and said Washington would be having “multiple points of contact” with the Kremlin.

“The only way this conflict can end is through negotiation,” he said.

“It is hard to start a process when people are shooting at each other and people are dying.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has insisted a US “backstop” should form part of any future deal in order to deter Russia from attacking again but the White House has so far not committed to any such arrangement.

However, Mr Rubio said on Wednesday that Ukraine’s ability to discourage “further aggression” would likely feature in talks.

He told journalists: “Can Ukraine create a sufficient deterrent against future aggression, against future attack, against future invasion?

“Because every country in the world has a right to defend themselves and no-one can dispute that, so that will most certainly have to be part of the conversation.”

Asked whether territorial concessions were discussed in US-Ukraine talks about a possible end to the war, Mr Rubio said the sides “had conversations” but “we’re not going to negotiate this publicly”.

“In any negotiation, there’s certainly an element where you don’t want one side to be giving away all this leverage from a public perspective,” he said.

He also suggested that European sanctions on Russia would likely be “on the table” in discussions about a possible peace.

“I think it’s self-evident that for there to be a peace in Ukraine at the end of that process, there’s going to have to be some decision made by the Europeans about what they’re going to do with these sanctions and so forth.”

Britain, which has imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Moscow since its invasion in 2022, said there was no change to its position.

Downing Street said on Wednesday that securing a lasting peace for Kyiv meant crippling Russian efforts to fund its war machine.

“There’s no change in our position in relation to sanctions,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary John Healey is meeting his counterparts from France, Germany, Italy and Poland in Paris to discuss joint work on building up Europe’s deterrent against Russia.

It follows a gathering of military chiefs in the French capital on Tuesday, aimed at thrashing out commitments for what Sir Keir dubbed the “coalition of the willing”: the group of nations that want to lead peacekeeping forces in Ukraine should a deal be struck.

Ahead of the talks, Mr Healey said it was now a “decisive moment for the future of Ukraine and for the security of Europe”.

Ukrainian leader Mr Zelensky said “it is up to the United States” to convince Russia to also agree to the plan, and said the ceasefire will “take effect immediately” if the Kremlin did.

In other developments:

– US special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow and put the deal directly to President Vladimir Putin.

– Nato secretary general Mark Rutte announced he would travel to Washington DC this week to discuss Mr Trump’s commitment to the alliance.

– Kyiv came under fire from a Russian air attack just hours after Ukraine signalled it would support the ceasefire deal.

– Russia said it regained more territory in the western Kursk region of the country, which Ukrainian forces invaded last summer in a bid to win a bargaining chip for future negotiations.