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US secretary of state Marco Rubio has spoken with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov ahead of high-level talks between Washington and Moscow next week, as relations thaw between the countries.
Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will meet Russian officials in Saudi Arabia next week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The high-level meeting comes after US President Donald Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the two agreed to begin negotiations for ending the war in Ukraine โimmediatelyโ.ย
Rubio โreaffirmed President Trumpโs commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraineโ, said state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce about the Lavrov call. โIn addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues.โ
The call between Rubio and Lavrov is a significant sign that substantive work has begun on negotiations and the two nations are in regular contact again, with diplomacy normalising. Saturdayโs call was the first time the US and Russia had spoken at that level in nearly two years, although they have maintained back-channel communications.
Russiaโs foreign ministry said Lavrov and Rubio agreed to work together on โrestoring mutually respectful interstate dialogueโ according to the lines set by Trumpโs call with Putin on Wednesday and to set up a meeting between the two leaders.ย
They also agreed to create โa line of communication to solve the problems in the US-Russia relationship in the interests of removing the unilateral barriers to mutually beneficial trade, economic, and investment co-operation inherited from the previous administrationโ, in an apparent indication that the US was prepared to roll back sanctions against Moscow over the invasion.
Lavrov and Rubio shared a โmutual willingness to work together on current international issuesโ such as Ukraine, the Palestinian territories, the Middle East, and other matters, the ministry added. They also discussed lifting mutual restrictions on each othersโ embassies and agreed to set up an expert-level meeting to agree โconcrete steps on lifting mutual barriersโ limiting their work.ย
The US embassy in Moscow and Russiaโs embassy in Washington both operate with significant restrictions on their staffing after several rounds of tit-for-tat expulsions dating back to allegations of Russian election interference in Trumpโs first win in 2016.ย
Trump on Thursday said there was still โa long wayโ to go in resolving the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, but that his call with Putin marked โa long way forward getting a solutionโ to the war.
Trump said he had directed Rubio, CIA director John Ratcliffe, Waltz and Witkoff to head the US negotiating team. His Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg was noticeably absent from this list.
Rhetoric from Trump and other US officials this week about negotiations has alarmed Kyiv and European capitals, which fear they will be sidelined in Washingtonโs negotiations with Moscow.ย
The US has asked European capitals to provide detailed proposals on the weaponry, peacekeeping troops and security arrangements they could provide Ukraine with as part of any security guarantees to end its war with Russia.
Washington sent a questionnaire to European governments to scope out the continentโs willingness to protect Kyiv after the war, and gauge the price Europe is willing to pay in exchange for a seat at the negotiating table with Moscow.ย
