Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the country, on Monday in anticipation of a summit on Tuesday to discuss an end to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry published video of the two statesmen meeting but offered few details on the discussion. The State Department said in a readout that Rubio and the crown prince “discussed Yemen and threats to navigation from Houthi terrorists that threaten global commerce, American interests, and Saudi citizens and infrastructure,” as well as other Middle Eastern issues. While Rubio reportedly thanked Saudi Arabia for hosting talks on Ukraine, the State Department did not explicitly say that the two discussed the issue in depth.
The visit is Rubio’s second since becoming America’s top diplomat and addresses the same issue as the prior one, in which he met with Russian officials in Riyadh to get a sense for what conditions Russia would be open to accepting in exchange for ending the bloody, three-year invasion. Rubio is expected to meet with top Ukrainian officials, including the country’s foreign and defense ministers, to discuss the war. In addition, Rubio told reporters on Monday that he expects to potentially discuss an agreement between Washington and Kyiv to jointly pursue rare-earth mineral mining in Ukraine.
“The minerals deal is on the table. That’s continuing to be worked on,” Rubio told reporters. “It’s not part of this conversation per se, and it’s not something that – tomorrow can be successful without it. It’s certainly a deal the President wants to see done, and – but it doesn’t necessarily have to happen tomorrow. There are still more details to work out.”
That deal, expected to be signed in late February, fell apart before cameras at the Oval Office when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky challenged American President Donald Trump on the matter, resulting in Trump expelling Zelensky from the White House.
“He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace,” Trump wrote after canceling the meeting with Zelensky.
Some days later, Zelensky said he was ready to return to negotiations, but he has not publicly apologized for the tense episode in the Oval Office. Ukrinform, the Ukrainian state media outlet, reported on Monday that U.S. Special Envoy for the Middle East Steven Witkoff said in a interview that Zelensky sent a private letter to Trump apologizing for the incident, but neither party confirmed nor challenged the report.
Zelensky arrived in Saudi Arabia separately on Monday for meetings with the Crown Prince, which he had postponed in February in protest of Rubio’s discussions with Russian officials there.
“We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us. I don’t want any coincidences, so I’m not going to Saudi Arabia,” a disgruntled Zelensky said in February during a visit to Turkey.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry similarly published photos of Mohammed bin Salman alongside Zelensky, revealing that the Ukrainian president “expressed gratitude and appreciation for the Kingdom’s [Saudi Arabia’s] efforts, highlighting its pivotal role in the Middle East and the world.”
“Ukraine has been seeking peace since the very first second of the war, and we have always said that the only reason that the war is continuing is because of Russia,” Zelensky wrote in a message prior to landing in Saudi Arabia.
Rubio told reporters on Monday that Zelensky is not expected to participate in the discussions on Tuesday despite his presence in the country.
“He’s here meeting with the crown prince, but I don’t think he’ll be part of our meetings. Our meetings are with the delegation they’ve sent,” Rubio explained, “their national security advisor, their defense minister, and their foreign minister – is my understanding.”
The secretary of state added that it was “possible” he would encounter Zelensky informally but that it was not expected.
Rubio described the objective of his mission in the meetings with Ukrainian officials as determining what terms are acceptable for the country in negotiations with Russia, just as he had done in meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“The important point in this meeting is to establish clearly their intentions, their desire, as they said publicly now numerous times, to reach a point where peace is possible,” Rubio said. “And then we’ll have to determine how far they are from a Russian position, which we don’t know yet either, and then once you understand what both sides truly are, it gives you a sense of how big the divide is and how hard it’s going to be.”
“The Russians can’t conquer all of Ukraine,” Rubio continued, “and obviously it’ll be very difficult for Ukraine, in any reasonable time period to sort of force the Russians back all the way to where they were in 2014 so the only solution to this war is diplomacy and getting them to a table where that’s possible.”
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