Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov meet for talks on Ukraine, but even before sitting down Russia demonstrated its hard bargaining mindset.
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Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov have met for talks on the future of the Ukraine war, but even before sitting down, Russia made clear it was approaching things with a hard bargaining mindset.
Images of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, flanked by America’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and sitting opposite Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Putin’s advisor Yuri Ushakov have been published as talks begin on Tuesday morning.
It is the first high-level talks between the U.S. and Russia since Moscow launched a second invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago. The talks are taking place at the Al Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and are being mediated by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. They are not intended to find answers for the Ukraine War directly but rather to create an environment where, later, the U.S. and Russian Presidents can meet face-to-face for real negotiations.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, second left, meets with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammad Al-Aiban, U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, third left, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, left, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, second right, at Diriyah Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday Feb. 18, 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool Photo via AP)
Indeed, President Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that from a Russian perspective, the primary purpose of today’s talks is “restoring the whole complex of Russian-American relations” and organising a future leader meeting.
Despite the narrow intent of today’s talks, European leaders, including Ukraine, have expressed disquiet at not being invited to attend. Ukraine has vowed to ignore any peace deal agreed over its head, and European leaders held their own “emergency” summit on Monday to discuss what was characterised beforehand as “the challenges posed by Trump.”
As expected with such major negotiations, both sides started early with their hard bargaining tactic positioning. Russia’s Lavrov, a political survivor who has been Russia’s foreign minister for over 20 years, made clear in comments as he flew to Saudi Arabia on Monday that he would be representing Russia’s worldview on the Ukraine war — itself so alien to most Westerners it might prove a negotiating stumbling block all of its own — and would start talks from a position of Russia surrendering no territory whatsoever, Reuters stated.
Lavrov also took the time to nettle European leaders, already reportedly smarting from not being invited to today’s talks, to say there would have been no point asking them to peace talks anyway as their only interest — in his view — is in prolonging the war. Lavrov said: “The European philosophy hasn’t gone anywhere, so I don’t know what they should do at the negotiating table. If they are going to weasel out some cunning ideas about freezing the conflict — while actually intending, as is their custom, nature, and habit — to continue the war, then why should we invite them at all?”.
In other respects, Russia’s concerns appear to mirror Ukraine’s in that it doesn’t want to see a ‘peace’ used as a pretext to re-arm Ukraine for a later resumption of hostilities, Lavrov said. Ukraine has said for weeks it wants any ceasefire to be permanent, with total deterrence of future Russian aggression, so it doesn’t merely use it as time to rebuild its military for a subsequent re-invasion.
Other hard bargaining positions included Lavrov saying Russia would be entering talks with an expectation that the West would have to answer in some way for supporting the Ukrainian government, which he reminds the official position of the Russian state, is that Kyiv is a “Nazi regime”. Ukraine has committed war crimes “worse than Hitler’s murderers” in the course of their defence against Russia’s invasion, he said. Ukraine also accuses Russia of war crimes.
As with all negotiations, the discovery of what is genuine and what are bids to gain early leverage awaits.
