Like a super cup of international politics, the fate of the war in Ukraine will almost certainly be played in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Kingdom could in fact host the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin which could lead to the conclusion of the conflict that began in February 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It was Trump himself who revealed the possible place of the face to face with Putin after a long 90 -minute phone call with the Russian president. “In the end we will meet, in fact, we expect him to come here and that I go there, and we will probably meet for the first time in Saudi Arabia. Let’s see if we manage to conclude something,” Trump said.
The call was confirmed by the Kremlin spokesman and may not have been the first to take place between the two leaders since Trump returned to the White House. Ukrainian President Zelensky was consulted by Trump only laterwith an hour phone call, despite his requests repeated to the United States to agree on a strategy to bring Ukraine to negotiations in a force position. Even the European Union has not been involved.
However, the United States Treasury Secretary arrived in Kiev on Wednesday, Scott Bessent, To discuss the privileged access to the Ukrainian rare lands, part of which are located in the Donbass occupied by the Russians. These are natural resources and metals including uranium, titanium, lithium, graphite and other resources of strategic value, for a value of trillion of US dollars.
“We talked about our economic cooperation and the sharing of resources,” said the Ukrainian leader for which mining concessions could be the card to convince the United States not to disengage from Ukraine’s defense.
But it is clear that, in Trump’s vision certainly welcome to Moscow, Ukraine will have to give in territories to Russia. The Secretary of Defense of the United States, Pete Hegsethexplained the American position during a meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. Hegseth told his counterparts (among them also the minister Guido Crosetto) that Zelenskyy has no possibility of achieving his goal of hunting Russian forces from Crimea and East of the country and reporting Ukrainian to the borders prior to 2014. “Chasing this illusory goal will only extend the war and cause further suffering,” said Hegseth. Trump reiterated his opposition to an entry of Ukraine into NATO, as Russia has always asked for.
“Clearly many things happened yesterday and we will discuss a lot in the next few days and weeks. But there is a convergence: we all want peace and that Kiev is in the best possible position when the negotiations will begin,” said the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte.
“This morning I met the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Rustmus Umerov. Minister Umerov assured me that Ukrainians are stopped and will not give up on their freedom and their territory. Europe will also be firm and will continue to support Ukraine in the his struggle ”, writes the high representative for the EU’s foreign policy on social media, Kaja Kallas.
