Top US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio
are in Saudi Arabia today for upcoming talks with Russian
leaders to end the war in Ukraine and solidify U.S.Russian
relations. Ukrainian officials, however, will not be
part of these talks that are set to begin tomorrow
in Riyadh, according to the Trump. dual track
discussions with Ukraine will begin later in the week.
Scripps News International correspondent Jason Bellini has covered this war
for us since the beginning. Jason, good to
see you joining us live from Kiev this morning.
What is the reaction from Ukraine over these talks and
the lack of representation for Ukraine? Hi Patrick.
Well, I can say people here are nervous and
confused because there's little clarity on what kind of deal
the Trump administration is trying to broker with Russia,
and there's even less confidence that it would serve Ukraine's
interests. The frustration is compounded by the fact.
That Trump called Putin last week before reaching out to
Ukraine's President Zelensky, who's in the United Arab Emirates
right now, a country that's quietly played an intermediary
role in the war, was blunt when asked about
the high level US-Russia meetings scheduled for tomorrow. Listen
. Ukraine will not participate. Ukraine knew nothing about
them. Ukraine perceives any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine
as those with no results. We cannot recognize anything
or any agreements about us without us. Over the
weekend, Zelensky went even further, saying Ukraine would
never accept a deal struck by the US and Russia
without Kiev's involvement. For now all Ukraine's leadership can
do is wait and see what comes out of Secretary
of State Rubio's meeting with Russia's delegation in Riyadh tomorrow
. But there's deep skepticism here. The biggest question
is Putin actually open to negotiations that The US,
let alone Ukraine, could accept Russia's messaging today suggests
otherwise. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He spoke just
a few hours ago. He seemed to dismiss the
entire premise of Ukraine as a legitimate state. His
words were cryptic but pointed. He said they referring
to the Americans, that territorial concessions are necessary for
what? That only reinforces fears in Kiev that any
deal struck behind closed doors will come at Ukraine's expense
, Patrick. Hm, well, meanwhile, Jason
, European leaders we know are gathering in Paris calling
an emergency meeting regarding the US Russian stance on all
of this conflict. What is the concerns there from
the the European countries? What do we know about
this emergency meeting? Well, European leaders, they're
skeptical, and some of them are fuming just like
Ukraine is. They have no seat at the table
for this first high level meeting despite the fact that
any deal that's made between Washington and Moscow could reshape
Europe's security landscape. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made
waves ahead of today's meeting, signaling that he would
consider deploying British troops to Ukraine to enforce any US
brokered peace deal, but beyond those kinds of Declarations
, there's deeper concern in European capitals that these negotiations
will mirror Trump's previous posture towards Russia, one that
many allies saw as being overly deferential to Moscow.
And here's what's really critical. There's growing anxiety not
just in Europe but in Washington, particularly among Democrats
and some within the national security establishment that the US
is walking into talks without a clear strategy and without
the support of its closest allies, Patrick. Is
that a surprise to you, Jason, that as
we hear about these talks that Ukraine is not involved
at least in these uh initial discussions taking place in
Saudi Arabia? Well, a lot of this is
coming as a surprise to the Ukrainians, that's for
sure, because, uh, they never expected there
would be negotiations that would happen without them directly involved
that with it's their country, their, their,
their future, their fate, so they feel that
they're the ones that should be doing the deal making
and again with these the contours of what's uh what's
gonna be negotiated completely out of their. It seems
that's really disconcerting to the Ukrainians and also to the
Europeans right now because it's all just so murky.
No one really knows what's going to happen when you
have these high level delegation, but maybe there will
be some clarity that comes out of this tomorrow how
willing is Moscow to do some serious negotiations with something
that the Ukrainians might be able to live with,
but you even had Zelensky and others here saying that
you know if they had to, they could go
alone, not alone, but with European supporters that
if they had to they could continue to fight this
war without the Americans. Now that's certainly not something
they would want to do and I'm sure this city
would be a lot less safe eventually if that were
to happen because we're protected by Patriot missiles and those
will eventually run out, Patrick. Great reporting there
. Scripps News International correspondent Jason Belai live from Ukraine
. Jason, thank you so much.