Who is sitting at the table?
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyj arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, but he is not expected to participate in the talks.
The Ukrainian delegation is led by Zelenskyj's influential chief of staff Andrij Jermak, who has brought with him Foreign Minister Andrij Sybiha, Defense Minister Rustem Umjerov, and the vice chief of staff Pavlo Palisa, a military commander who has led a Ukrainian brigade in the war.
In the American delegation, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Trump's diplomatic envoy Steven Witkoff are sitting.
.
Why in Saudi Arabia?
The meeting is taking place in the large coastal city of Jeddah on the Red Sea. The US and Russian foreign ministers' meeting last week was held in the capital Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia is hosting after taking a prominent mediating role in the wars in Gaza and Sudan. The ruling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was previously shunned by many Western countries, but the US and others have shifted their stance.
President Trump has nurtured particularly good relations with the oil-rich kingdom. Foreign Minister Rubio is to meet the Crown Prince during his visit.
Saudi Arabia has also maintained contacts with Russia through the oil cartel Opec, which has a significant role to play as it is primarily oil that lubricates Russia's overheated war economy.
.
What is on the agenda?
The countries will move forward from the disastrous meeting at the White House in Washington, where Zelenskyj was harshly treated by Trump in front of TV cameras. A mineral agreement remains on the table, but its value is unclear both in terms of mining revenues and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Trump's promise of a swift peace has in recent weeks manifested itself in sharp warnings to Ukraine, with withheld military support, to get the country to meet the invading power halfway.
The US is reportedly seeking assurances that Ukraine can accept Russia retaining occupied areas. Ukraine is said to be proposing a partial ceasefire, in the air and at sea.
.
Russia then?
In the Trump camp, there has long been talk of a strategy where one would twist the arms of both warring parties to force them to negotiate.
On the one hand, the US's surprising rapprochement with Russia has raised questions about why Trump is not taking a harder line on a pressured Putin. On the other hand, he has threatened to tighten sanctions on the overheated Russian war economy.
In Russia, the Kremlin and state media are increasingly speaking in terms of peace – and about Ukraine as the intransigent party.
According to CNN, a new Russian-American meeting is also being held in Saudi Arabia this week.
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian forces met strong resistance and a multi-year war ensued. Russian forces entered the neighboring country as early as 2014, which led to the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and a simmering conflict in Donbass in the east.
When Russia's President Vladimir Putin launched the large-scale war, he strongly opposed Ukraine's desire to join NATO. He has claimed that the state of Ukraine has no right to exist, with lies about its democratically elected government being a "Nazi regime" that is committing genocide against ethnic Russians.
Ukraine's allies, primarily the US and EU, have in recent years provided significant support to the Ukrainian defense and punished Russia with sanctions for the invasion war. In Moscow, the war has over time come to be described in existential terms, as a conflict between Russia and a united Western world.
The US President Donald Trump and his administration have, since taking office, shocked the world with statements that NATO membership for Ukraine is not on the table and that a return to the country's borders prior to 2014 is "unrealistic". They have also initiated a dialogue with Russia about Ukraine, which Kyiv and Europe have so far been excluded from.
