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The United States wants to hear what concessions Ukraine would be willing to make in negotiations to end the war with Russia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ahead of a high-stakes meeting between the two nations on Tuesday.
“We really want to sort of ascertain where they stand on this and what they’re willing to do in order to achieve peace,” Rubio told reporters on Monday.
The discussions in the Saudi port city of Jeddah comes as the relationship between Washington and Kyiv is at its lowest point since Russia launched its full-scale invasion three years ago. Following a contentious Oval Office meeting between US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the US announced a “pause” on military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv. Russia has continued its deadly barrage of attacks against Ukraine in the time since that suspension was put in place.
The move followed weeks of antagonism by Trump towards Zelensky that has seen the US president repeat Kremlin talking points blaming Kyiv for the war and after Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff sat down in Riyadh with a high-level Russian delegation – and without Ukrainian participation.
Speaking Monday, Rubio said the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting “will be key” to whether the pause in military aid and intelligence sharing is lifted.
“I think if we emerge there with a good meeting that we feel good about and can report back to the president, then I think decisions will be made in regards to the pause,” he said.
CNN has reported that the US is still sharing intelligence with Ukraine that can help its troops defend themselves but has “scaled back” sharing any intelligence that Kyiv could use for offensive targeting of Russian forces, according to two US defense officials.
“My hope is we’re going to have a really good meeting tomorrow, and we’ll be in a different place very soon,” Rubio said.
Rubio and Waltz, who are slated to meet with the Ukrainian national security adviser, foreign minister, and defense minister, will be “in listening mode,” the top US diplomat said.
“They’ve suffered greatly, and their people have suffered greatly, and it’s hard in the aftermath of something like that to even talk about concessions, but that’s the only way this is going to end, to prevent more suffering,” Rubio said, adding that he’s “not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do.”
The top US diplomat acknowledged that the moves Ukraine would be willing to make “may be incompatible with what the Russians are willing to do.”
“That’s what we need to find out. We’re not going to find out on X. We’re not going to find out, you know, on media, press conferences. We have to find out in rooms that are closed,” Rubio added, just over a week since the meeting between Trump and Zelensky went off the rails in front of cameras.
Rubio said the conversation would not be overly detailed – “we’re not going to be sitting in a room drawing lines on a map” – but that the US aims to “get a general sense of what concessions are in the realm of the possible for them and what they would need in return and then find out what the Russian position is in that regard. And that’ll give us a pretty good assessment of how far apart we truly are.”
In a post on X last Thursday, Zelensky said he hoped the meeting would be “meaningful.”
“Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first moment of the war, and we have always stated that the war continues solely because of Russia. Ukraine is not only ready to take the necessary steps for peace, but we are also proposing those steps,” he said. Zelensky is not expected to attend Tuesday’s meeting, although he is in Saudi Arabia.
In a separate post last Tuesday, Zelensky said the way the Oval Office meeting ended was “regrettable.” He proposed, as a first phase to end the war, “the release of prisoners and truce in the sky — ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure — and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same.”
“Then we want to move very fast through all next stages and to work with the US to agree a strong final deal,” he said.
On a minerals deal between the US and Ukraine – which had been largely negotiated before the Oval Office meeting – Zelensky said “Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format.”
Rubio, however, said Monday he did not necessarily expect the agreement to be finalized on Tuesday.
“There’s still more details to work out,” he said.
This story has been updated with additional details.